Un baiser SVP

Keaton had a nervous breakdown about two months before this British made movie had a release in a few theaters in the U. S. as "As Old Spanish Custom." Nobody even bothered to review it.

Keaton sparkles in the film's many gags, but the film, at least the 50 minute version on the Internet Archive and Youtube, does not have enough time to develop thematically.

Lupitar Tovar (Dracula - Spanish Version - 1931) gives a nice performance as the object of Buster's affection/desire.

Even at this low point in his life, Keaton still had all his acrobatic skills and continued to be a master of slap-stick gag construction. Definitely worth seeing for Keaton fans.

Old Spanish Custom, An (1935)

BOMB (out of 4)

Extremely cheap British film about a stupid American (Buster Keaton) who flirts with another man's wife and then must do a Spanish custom by challenging him to a duel. This is an extremely bad film on all levels from the cheap production to the horrid direction to the screenplay, which really only allows Keaton to have water thrown on him. There's not a single laugh to be found but there's plenty of tears having to see Keaton doing stuff like this.

You can find this film on the Buster Keaton Laughsmith set.

... as this is one of the few bad films Keaton ever did. After being fired from MGM at the height of the Great Depression, Keaton easily found roles in shorts such as those he did at Educational Pictures, but starring roles were hard to come by. Partly this was because of the Depression itself, partly it was because Keaton was still seen as a silent star, but some of the problem was with the fact that Keaton had a problem with alcohol that was almost suicidal during the early and mid 30's. When this film was made his illness was at its height.

The producer, Sam Spiegel, made some great films in the 1950's. In 1934, however, he was under-financed, inexperienced, and basically did not know what he was doing. There simply was not enough story to fill up a feature length film. Thus we have painfully prolonged scenes such as Lupita Tovar's dance scene at the club near the beginning of the film. Are there funny moments by Buster here? Sure there are, mainly because although Buster did not get writing credit, the story was his own. There's still not enough good material to make up for sitting through all of the padding. To see a recovered Keaton do his best material from this prolonged film in a more appropriate 20 minute short, see the Columbia short "Pest From the West". Both this film and that short are available on DVD.

Very poor effort from Buster Keaton, who looks like he'd rather be anywhere else. The premise does offer some comic possibilities (Buster used as a patsy by a pair of lovers in a plan to get rid of the woman's husband), but there is more music than comedy (barely any comedy, really), and the production values / sound / image are atrocious. The only redeeming element is that Lupita Tovar (who lived to be 106!) is pretty hot, especially in some shots with wet hair and her bare back exposed. *1/2 out of 4.

The only reason why I'm giving this practically forgotten low-budget film 6 out of 10 stars is that it is historically very interesting and important for Keaton completists. It's a fairly artful example of BK and his drunk mid-30s worst work BUT he also clearly managed to get a lot of input into gags, and the basic premise - a version of Spite Marriage (wrong guy gets married to girl to make bad guy jealous) - reminds us of previous and better fleshed-out MGM era films.

Note that Keaton re-made (or had it remade) this film as a short at Columbia years later, a 16-minute distillation that services the admittedly thin plot better. Seeing the same gags in different context is often illustrative of how they were thought up. Here producer Sam Spiegel tries to cash in on Keaton's fame, and actually hired German DP Eugen Schüfftan, who had worked with Pabst, Wilder, Carne, and other very expressionistic directors earlier in his career. This low-budget film actually tries to look much better than it can ever hope to.

I recommend seeing this film on the recent Laughsmith's INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH KEATON DVD, which has a knowing commentary telling us the behind-the-scenes stories of the film.