Allez Oop

Allez-Oop! (1934)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Buster Keaton's second film at Educational Pictures has him playing a watch maker who falls in love with a woman (Dorothy Sebastian) who he eventually takes to the circus. At the circus the woman ends up falling in love with a performer who of course turns out to be a jerk and Keaton gets his chance to shine. This is a pretty poor film from start to finish and it's yet another example of one feeling sorry that a talent like Keaton had to appear in it. It's well-known that Keaton hated his years at MGM but the majority of the films he did there were certainly better than this. The screenplay is fairly poorly written and this includes the silly attempts at laughs early on, which are pretty much scenes of Keaton dropping or breaking things. The "romance" between Keaton and Sebastian is fairly poorly and certainly won't remind people of their work in SPITE MARRIAGE. The stunts towards the end of the film are good but by this time most viewers would have turned the film off. The ending is also rather violent and the unpleasant nature doesn't sit too well in a comedy. Harry Myers, best known for the drunk in Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS, has a small role here.