Alexander's Ragtime Band: A Bizarre Little Musical Experiment

Is it worth your time?

If you like your movies completely off the rails and low-budget, maybe. If you prefer, you know, coherent storytelling or actual production value, you should probably skip this one. It feels less like a finished film and more like a home movie that accidentally got released to the public. 🐭

The whole thing centers on Alexander trying to teach Devin the Dog to play instruments. It’s exactly as difficult to watch as it sounds. The dog looks profoundly confused, which is honestly the most relatable part of the whole experience.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Alexander's Ragtime Band (1931) through its definitive frames.

The Tuba Incident

The plot—if we can even call it that—hits a speed bump when a mouse pops out of the tuba. It’s supposed to be funny, I think? It just feels like someone found a mouse on set and decided to keep the camera rolling.

The pacing is genuinely weird. It jumps from dog-training to rodent-discovery without even pretending to have a narrative structure. It’s got that raw, unpolished energy you find in oddities like Clara Cleans Her Teeth. Both films have that weird, specific vibe where you can’t quite tell if they were trying to be educational or just completely unhinged.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Alexander's Ragtime Band (1931) through its definitive frames.

The Sing-Along

Then, the movie just kind of gives up and turns into a sing-along. You get the bouncing ball, the lyrics, the whole bit. It’s jarring. One minute you’re watching a guy struggle with a dog, and the next you’re being forced to participate in a karaoke session.

I’ve seen some strange things in the archives, like the grit in Im Kampf mit der Unterwelt, but this is a different kind of mess. It’s not gritty; it’s just bewildered. 🎶

• The dog is definitely a better actor than the human.
• The mouse is the only character who knows what it's doing.
• The bouncing ball feels like a threat rather than a guide.

It’s not a good movie by any stretch. But it’s definitely a memorable one, mostly because you’ll spend the whole runtime asking yourself how this even got made. Sometimes that’s enough to keep a critic interested.