So I just watched The Grapes of Wrath from 1940, and there’s a little comic scene of the Joad kids first encounter with a flushing toilet. You don’t see the toilet, but you do hear it flush.
I know bathrooms were shown in previous movies but as far as I know, this is the earliest film where a toilet was acknowledged in the dialog, let alone flushing. Does anyone know of an earlier example?
I can guess that outhouses were portrayed somewhere, but how about an indoor flushing toilet?
The Crowd is considered the earliest known film to show a toilet. I don’t know if it referenced the toilet in dialogue. I doubt it was referenced in spoken dialogue the audience could hear because it was a silent film. IMDB probably would have mentioned if the word appeared in any subtitles or dialogue panels. But who knows what words the actors may have been mouthing in that scene.