The Biter Bit

1900 Comedy 1 minute

About The Biter Bit

A boy steps on a gardener's hose and stops the water. The gardener looks down the nozzle. The boy steps off, the stream hits the gardener in the face, and the gardener turns the hose on him.

More about The Biter Bit

James Bamforth's firm in Holmfirth made this British remake of Auguste and Louis Lumière's L'Arroseur arrosé (1895). The BFI dates the Bamforth film to 1899.

Themes

Background

L'Arroseur arrosé, shown in 1895, was one of the first staged comic films. British firms were still reworking French subjects at the end of the decade.

Making

Early producers copied one another's comic subjects openly. Bamforth kept the hose gag and restaged it in a deeper garden set.

Preservation

The film survives and is included in the BFI DVD Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers.

Notes

  • Michael Brooke, writing for BFI Screenonline, notes three planes of action and a wider sense of space than in the Lumière film.
  • The running time of the surviving picture is 1 minute 9 seconds.
  • A clip is used in Paul Merton's BFI guide How They Laughed.

Scenes

  • The boy lets go of the hose just as the gardener peers into the nozzle.

Influenced by

  • L'Arroseur arrosé (1895)

Also available

  • BFI DVD Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers