Recently I watched the 1973 film Serpico, part of the Turner Movie Classics run-up to the Oscars. For those who consider 1973 to be prehistory, the film stars Al Pacino as Frank Serpico, a New York City policeman who exposes widespread corruption in the N.Y.P.D. It’s based on a true story.
Ever sensitive to dialog—particularly dialog that involves laundry—I noted the following exchange. It takes place when Serpico tells Captain McClain that he has reported the police corruption to an official agency outside the police department:
McClain: Holy Mother of God! Frank, we wash our own laundry around here! You could be brought up on charges!
Serpico: We do not wash our own laundry! It just gets dirtier!
When I searched for the phrase “we wash our own laundry,” Google came up with more than 3,700 hits. Not exactly the 994,000 hits of “Make him an offer he can’t…