Allez Oop! (1934) - Buster Keaton's Goofy Backyard Trapeze Act

If you have twenty minutes to spare today, Allez Oop! is absolutely worth a quick look, especially if you love Buster Keaton when he's just being silly. But if you hate old-school slapstick where people fall on their faces every ten seconds, you should probably skip this one. ⏰

Honestly, it's not his greatest work ever, but there's a really sweet, desperate energy to it that I loved.

Buster plays a guy who fixes clocks and falls hard for a girl who only has eyes for a fancy trapeze artist at the local circus.

To win her back, Buster basically decides he has to become an acrobat himself, using his own backyard as a training ground.

The backyard practice scenes are easily the best part of the whole short.

He sets up this incredibly janky trapeze bar using clothesline poles, and you just know things are going to go wrong immediately.

At one point, he tries to do a flip and just lands flat on his back with this look of pure, quiet defeat.

It reminds me a bit of the chaotic relationship energy in Beware of Married Men, where everyone is just making terrible, impulsive decisions for love.

Dorothy Sebastian plays the girlfriend, and her reactions to Buster's terrible stunts are pure gold.

There is this one shot where she is watching the circus performer with this incredibly dazed, love-struck face that goes on just a second too long.

It's almost funny how obvious her crush is, and you can't help but feel a little bad for Buster.

The rival, played by George J. Lewis, is hilariously smug in his tight little acrobat outfit.

You just want to see him get knocked over, which of course, Buster eventually tries to do in the most chaotic way possible.

Some of the physical gags feel a bit recycled, like they came straight out of an old silent reel like An Oil-Can Romeo.

But Buster's timing is still so incredibly sharp, even in this later era when his career wasn't at its absolute peak anymore.

The ending feels incredibly rushed, like they suddenly realized they were running out of film and just stopped filming.

But honestly, that's part of the charm of these weird little 1930s shorts. 🤸‍♂️

It doesn't need to be a masterpiece to make you smile on a lazy afternoon.