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7.4/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 7.4/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Im Schallplattenladen remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have ever worked in customer service, do not watch this unless you want some serious flashbacks. It is absolutely worth twenty minutes of your time today, especially if you like your comedy dry and slightly annoying.
People who love Monty Python or weird character studies will eat this up. But if you need a story with an actual point, you should probably skip it.
So the whole thing takes place inside a tiny record shop in 1934. Karl Valentin walks in, looking like a giant, nervous bird in a trench coat, and just starts wrecking the shopkeeper's day.
Liesl Karlstadt plays the lady behind the counter, and her face is honestly the best part of the whole short. You can see her soul slowly leaving her body every time he opens his mouth.
He wants a record, but he does not know the title, the singer, or how the tune goes. He just expects her to know what is inside his head. We have all met this guy.
There is this great bit where he asks to hear a record of someone laughing. She puts it on, and he just stands there, completely blank-faced, listening to this manic laughing sound. 😐
Then he complains that the laughing sounds too artificial. It is so stupidly funny because of how deadpan he is.
The audio quality is pretty crackly, which actually makes it feel more cozy. It is like finding a old tape in a basement.
Unlike other music films of the era like La voie sans disque or high-energy shorts like Swing High, this is basically just two people talking in a room. It feels very modern in how simple it is.
At one point, he wants a record that has absolutely nothing on it. Just silence. He actually argues about the price of a silent record because "there is no music to pay for."
The ending is pretty abrupt, like they just ran out of film or got tired of filming. But honestly, that is fine. I did not need a big moral lesson anyway. 📻