The Laundress
About The Laundress
Bessie quarrels with the hairdresser and writes the tailor that she will dine with him. Sweedie, the laundress, Wallace Beery in women's clothes, is in love with the tailor. She sends a note that she will drown herself in the dye vat, plants a dummy head-first in the vat, and comes back dressed as her own brother. The tailor wails that he would marry Sweedie if she were alive. She pulls off the disguise and he faints.
Cast & crew
More about The Laundress
Essanay released the one-reeler on 2 November 1914 through the General Film Company. An Essanay advertisement lists Robert Bolder as the tailor, billed I. M. Tailor, Ben Turpin as his assistant, Charlotte Mineau as Bessie, and Leo White as the hairdresser. The short is also called Sweedie the Laundress.
Themes
Making
Beery's Sweedie costume is the whole gag: a large man in a dress, a fake suicide in a dye vat, and a second disguise as the dead woman's brother.
Preservation
Silent Era lists a surviving print. The film is in the public domain in the United States.
Notes
- Beery played Sweedie, a Swedish maid, in a string of Essanay comedies in 1914. This one puts her in a laundry instead of a kitchen.
- The tailor's screen name on the ad is I. M. Tailor.
- Silent Era lists a surviving print and a public-domain status in the United States.
- The Free Library of Philadelphia holds the Essanay advertisement dated for the 2 November release.
- General Film, not Keystone, handled the distribution. The short is an Essanay picture.
Scenes
- Sweedie sticks a dummy head-first into the dye vat and leaves it for the tailor to find.
- She returns as her own brother, then yanks off the male clothes and the tailor faints.
