Nursery Scandal: Why is there a scarecrow in my nursery rhyme?

Is this for you?

Look, if you have a soft spot for oddball, handmade cinema that feels like a fever dream, Nursery Scandal might be your new favorite weird object. But if you need, you know, coherent pacing or actors who don't look like they're holding their breath, you should probably skip it. It's definitely not for the people who need their movies to be “explained” to them.

It’s a movie about Mother Goose and a scarecrow hooking up. Yes, really. It’s exactly as strange as that sounds, but the film doesn’t seem to realize it’s being weird. That’s the charm, I guess.

The vibe

The whole thing has this grainy, damp feeling to it, like the lens was smeared with a bit of butter before they started shooting. Harry Bailey and John Foster are doing a lot of heavy lifting here with very little dialogue. Most of the movie is just them staring into the middle distance while something happens off-screen.

There is this one shot of the scarecrow leaning against a fence that goes on for about forty-five seconds. Nothing happens. A leaf blows by. The camera just stays there, unblinking. It’s almost hypnotic, or maybe I was just tired.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Nursery Scandal (1932) through its definitive frames.

A bit of a mess

It’s not quite as rhythmic as Chicken Hunting, which actually managed to make its rural setting feel alive. Here, everything feels like it’s happening in a vacuum. You keep waiting for the plot to kick in, but it just kind of… wanders around the barnyard.

There’s a scene where they’re supposedly having a romantic moment near a pile of hay, and the audio sounds like it was recorded inside a tin can. It’s great. It gives the whole thing a lo-fi grit that I didn't expect.

• The scarecrow’s outfit is clearly held together by safety pins.
• The lighting in the barn changes from afternoon to midnight in the span of one single sentence.
• I’m still not sure if the goose was real or a very stiff puppet.

It reminds me a bit of Thundering Tenors in how it just refuses to follow traditional narrative rules. It just does what it wants, when it wants. I respect that, even if it leaves me scratching my head.

Don't look for a grand message here. It’s just a weird, little story about a bird and some straw. Sometimes that’s enough. 🌾