YALE LAUNDRY
The following is a review of YALE LAUNDRY (Biograph, 1907, 805 feet) published in The Moving Picture World on November 2, 1907. If you have additional information on this film, please contact the Yale Film Archive.
"When the cat's away the mice will play," may be aptly applied to the theme of this picture of Biograph. The Yale Laundry is owned and operated by a dashing widow with two vivacious daughters. Departing for a short vacation, the mother leaves the girls in charge, and with ill-concealed gratulations the fair maidens bid materfamilias adieu. Then the sport begins, and Momus, the Master of Revels, holds court. The laundry, situated in a college town, is the Mecca of a motley mob — the "Rah! Rah!" boy, the emeritus professor, the omniscient academician and pedagogue are all patrons of this temple of lavation for soiled raiment. Among this concourse are a couple of adolescent students who have made their way into the hearts of les joli blanchisseuses by the candy route, and finding the coast clear, enter to invite the girls to a masquerade ball for that evening. Having their costumes with them — they intending to appear in female attire — the girls persuade them to try them on, which they do, and for a lark, assume the duties of laundresses. Here is a quartette for your life. They turn the place into a chaotic, turbulent pandemonium — the patrons might well say with Dante as he entered the realms of Plato, "All who enter here leave hope behind." They simply make things whiz. The old schoolmasters are amazed at the bold, brazen impudence of the fictitious girls, who flirt with them whenever they enter. Still, the masters are most receptive, and are delighted by the adulations poured out by the masquerading couple.
It seems that the spirit of the "Abbot of Misrule" hovers over the entire establishment. In the wash-house are employed a couple of Swedes, a gosse and flicka, who do the chores. Ole is deeply smitten with the unostentatious charms of Yennie, and as she sits on a table, he says, "Yennie, you bane nice flicka, jag alsker dig, gif mig en kyss," for which he gets his face pushed into a pan of starch; and if he never had a stiff upper lip, he sure has one now. From here to the drying yard they go to hang up the clothes. Ole, in handing Yennie the pieces, gives her the hem of her own dress, which she, of course, pins to the line. Ole then props the line and up goes Yennie, hanging on the line, head down. Here is Ole's chance to become a hero, and he rushes to her rescue.
Meanwhile there is something doing in the laundry. Oh, yes! The girls and their friends are hidden from view when Percival, the pedantic Latin scholar, enters in quest of his laundry package. The place is in a state of isolation and his suit for attention meets with no response. Timorously he climbs over the counter and makes his way to the wash-house, where also his calling and rapping is answered only with an echo. Aha! He espies what appears to be a bell-cord and gives it a vigorous yank, but it happens to be the trigger of the soap-chute, so poor Percy is fairly floundered in a cataclysm of soap powder — the last of the line of "1776" martyrs.
When old Professor Pythagorus appears, one of the party engages him in a flirtation, during which the others rush in with the alarming announcement, "Mother's coming!" A pretension is made to hide him and he is induced to get into the washing machine, and while safely (?) ensconced therein, Ole enters, turns on the water and starts the engine. Merciful Heaven! What a fall — from the mortar-board to the ironing-board. All hands to the rescue! And as we view him through the soft nebulous veil of steam, he presents a most lugubrious spectacle, with his clothing in ribbons, covered with soapy foam from head to feet.
It is easy to imagine that in this general hubbub things get a trifle mixed, and when the fatuous old spinster opens her laundry package at home and finds such articles of apparel as are only exposed to view in the privacy of the bachelor apartment, she receives a shock equal only to that experienced by the staid old pedagogue who draws from his bundle some of the latest creations in lingerie. Back to the laundry rush the whole town, clamoring for that which is their own, and on this turgid congestion of humanity that struggles for its rights in front of the counter, comes down an avalanche of laundry boxes from the shelves above, completely burying the lot—and the blow almost killed mother, for she arrives just in time to get it — thus concluding a comedy film that is inexpressibly and inimitably transcendent — as compared with others, "A Triton among the Minnows."
