DbcultAccessing Vault...
6.1/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.1/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Keep in Style remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have six minutes to spare and love old-school cartoon weirdness, Keep in Style is absolutely worth your time. You'll love it if you dig the rubbery, pre-code style of Fleischer Studios, but anyone looking for a real plot or logical physics will probably hate it.
Betty Boop basically hosts a fashion show showcasing ridiculous future inventions. Some of these gadgets are just plain bizarre, like a hat that acts as a literal birdcage with a live bird inside.
Mae Questel does the voice of Betty here, and she is as screechy and incredibly charming as always. I swear, the way the animators make everyday objects bend and wobble like jelly is so much more fun than modern CGI.
There is this one quick scene where a dressing machine prepares a woman, and the mechanical hands sort of shove her into her clothes. It actually looks kinda painful if you think about it too much.
Then Betty invents the "ankle skirt" which is a skirt that sits directly on the ankles, leaving the thighs totally bare. Its a hilarious fashion statement that somehow sweeps the entire country overnight.
The music is incredibly catchy, especially during the big runway number. Even the local street dogs start wearing the ankle skirts, which is just the kind of surreal gag I live for.
The strange energy here reminds me a lot of the weirdness in The Dogway Melody, where everything feels slightly feverish and off-kilter. 🎥
The short doesn't really have an ending, it just sort of stops when the music runs out. But that is the beauty of these 1930s shorts; they didn't care about structure, they just wanted to make you laugh or blink in confusion.
You can even see a few dust specs on the original cells if you look closely. It makes the whole thing feel incredibly human and hand-made. Definitely give it a watch if you need a quick dose of happy nonsense today.