User Reviews

In this rather long and elaborate comedy for 1906 -- a full reel in length -- housemaids (actually men in drag) go on strike, abandon their charges, and join the picket lines, carrying signs raining opprobrium on their oppressors. They get drunk in saloons and throw out the cops. They battle policeman on the streets, and are victorious. The government calls in the army to put down the disruption, but can they restore order?

It was an ongoing fight from the 1840s to the start of the Second World War, with time out for bursts of patriotism during the Great War among men, who brought home the salaries; yet was the fight ever carried to the domestic workers? Not in any great or obvious number, and this short raises the question of why that never happened. It's not that cleaning or tending children is not a skilled trade; it requires assiduous care. Certainly middle-class society would end in a trice were the staff ever to lay down their tools and lead the householders to fend for themselves.

In this peculiar Pathé comedy, translated in English as "The Strike of the Housekeepers," maids abandon their domestic servitude and, upon the streets, the children they rear, to unionize and strike, which becomes something of a riot, as the women run men over, are chased and arrested by police, as the cops also reclaim the abandoned kids. Perhaps to add to the comedic effect and physical stunts, the housekeepers are, according to Alison McMahan (in her book, "Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema"), at least, all portrayed by men.

This is also a relatively elaborate short for 1906. I counted 26 shots in all, with at least three instances of crosscutting. There's also a possibly intentional cut to brightness in the middle of one shot, as though the negative were over-exposed, as one of the maids leaps upon a policeman. Ultimately, the action and continuity, as they often do in early cinema, turn into a chase. A somewhat amusing and unusual picture from Pathé.