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6.4/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.4/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Accent on Girls remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Honestly, only if you have a soft spot for 1930s big band music or want to see what Ina Ray Hutton was actually like in her prime. If you’re looking for a coherent story or pacing that makes sense, you’re going to be bored within three minutes. It is a musical short, so it’s basically just a series of performances glued together with a thin layer of “role reversal” comedy.
The whole gimmick is that the women are running the club and the men are stuck doing whatever it is men are supposed to do when the script demands a switch. It feels less like a narrative and more like a vaudeville act that just happened to wander in front of a camera crew. 🎷
The band, The MeloDears, is actually pretty sharp. There is this one shot where the lighting catches the brass instruments just right, and for a second, the whole thing feels alive. Then the camera does this weird, jittery trick effect that I’m sure looked groundbreaking in 1937, but now it just looks like the film reel is having a seizure.
It reminds me a bit of the frantic, nonsensical energy in Diplomaniacs, where the jokes are flying so fast that nobody really cares if they land. Except here, the music is the only thing that actually lands.
It’s funny to compare this to something like L'architecture d'aujourd'hui, which is obviously a completely different animal, but both films have this weird, singular focus that makes them feel like artifacts from a different planet. One is about buildings, one is about drums and trumpets, and both feel like they were made by people who were very, very tired.
The music is loud. The transitions are non-existent. It’s a messy, loud, brassy blast from the past that doesn't pretend to be high art. If you like music shorts, you’ll dig it. If not, maybe skip it. No hard feelings.
