DbcultAccessing Vault...
Cult Review
Senior Film Conservator
Should you watch Darn Tootin? Honestly, if you have ten minutes and a high tolerance for the surreal logic of early talkies, absolutely. If you want a narrative that makes sense or a plot that doesn't feel like a fever dream about musical agriculture, stay far away. This is for the weirdos who like seeing how people in the 1920s tried to figure out what a 'musical' could actually do on screen.
The whole thing kicks off with a dad burying his kid's saxophone in the backyard. Why? Who knows. It just happens. Next thing you know, the damn thing sprouts like a sunflower. Only instead of seeds, it grows Dixie Lee singing 'I Apologise' and Lucille Page dancing her heart out.
It’s the kind of logic you only get in these old shorts. Nobody questions the botanical jazz concert. It just is.
Rudy Wiedoeft is there on the saxophone, and man, the guy can play. It’s a bit jarring to see him standing in a garden patch while these performers pop out like jack-in-the-boxes, but the music is surprisingly solid. Much better than the clunky, stiff stuff you see in something like When Dawn Came.
Lucille Page’s dance routine is surprisingly hot for the era. She’s got this frantic, high-energy thing going that makes the whole 'buried plant' premise feel even weirder. You can tell they were trying to cram as much variety as possible into a tiny runtime.
The production design is... well, it’s a hole in the ground. It looks like they filmed it on a Tuesday morning and didn't bother checking if the dirt looked real. It reminds me a bit of the chaotic energy in Angora Love, though with significantly fewer goats and way more brass instruments.
I kept waiting for the kid to come back and try to reclaim his instrument, but he never does. He just lets the garden have it. Maybe he realized a singing Dixie Lee is better than practicing scales.
It’s short, it’s absurd, and it’s completely unbothered by the fact that it makes zero sense. 🎷