The Yawner (1907)
aka Le bailleur
Article 5906 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-20-2020
Directed by Segundo de Chomon
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: catching

An incessant yawner goes about his daily business and infects everyone he meets with his ailment.

I guess I’m not really surprised that someone made a short movie about the contagiousness of yawning, and the silent era was just the time to address it. This short take on the subject does find some variety with the concept, and it lapses into the fantastic at one point when a pair of paintings come to life and start yawning as well. I would have consigned this fantastic content to the “humorous exaggeration” category hadn’t it been for the fact that people overtly react to seeing the paintings come to life. At any rate, the short is slight, but mildly entertaining, just as I suspected it would be.