''The Biter Bit'' is an

1899 Events January * January 1 ** Spanish rule formally ends in Cuba with the cession of Spanish sovereignty to the U.S., concluding 400 years of the Spanish Empire in the Americas.''The American Monthly Review of Reviews'' (February 1899), p ...

British short

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

silent

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

, produced by

Bamforth & Co Ltd Bamforth & Co Ltd was a publishing, film and illustration company based in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, England. History Bamforth & Co Ltd was started in 1870 by James Bamforth, a portrait photographer in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire. In 1883 he beg ...

, featuring a boy playing a practical joke on a gardener by grasping his hose to stop the water flow and then letting go when the gardener looks down it to check. The film "is an English remake" of

Auguste and Louis Lumière The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their ' motion ...

's ''

L'Arroseur Arrosé ''Watering the Flowers'' () was an 1896 French silent short comedy film directed by Georges Méliès. It was released by Méliès's company Star Film and is numbered 6 in its catalogues. The film was made in imitation of the more famous Louis L ...

'' (1895), according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "providing a good illustration of how early film production companies cheerfully plagiarised each other's work" with "a few minor differences between, most notably a rather greater sense of space and depth in the Bamforth version" and "three distinct planes to the action". It is included in the BFI DVD ''Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers'' and a clip is used in

Paul Merton Paul James Martin (born 9 July 1957), known by the stage name Paul Merton, is an English comedian who is best known as one of the two regular panellists on the television show '' Have I Got News for You''. Known for his improvisation skill, M ...

's interactive guide to early British silent comedy ''How They Laughed'' on the BFI website.

References

External links

* 1899 films 1899 comedy films 1890s British films British black-and-white films British remakes of French films Articles containing video clips 1899 short films Silent British comedy short films Auguste and Louis Lumière {{short-silent-comedy-film-stub