the gardener. For the mischievous boy, Lumière used a young apprentice carpenter from the Lumière factory who is variously credited as Daniel Duval and Benoît Duval (born 1881). But Léon Trotobas seems to have been the first boy to play the role in La Ciotat. François Clerc as Gardener Léon Trotobas, then Benoît Duval as Boy (sometimes credited as Daniel Duval) Poster The poster for L'Arroseur arrosé has the distinction of being the first poster designed to promote an individual film. Although posters had been used to advertise cinematic projection shows since 1890, early posters were typically devoted to describing the quality of the recordings and touting the technological novelty of these shows. The poster for L'Arroseur, illustrated by Marcellin Auzolle, depicts an audience (in the foreground) laughing as the film (in the background) is projected against a screen. It depicts the moment the gardener is splashed in the face, and is thus also the first film poster to depict an actual scene from a film. Copies and imitations As copyright law was neither enforced nor yet well-defined for the emerging art of cinema, it was common both for competing filmmakers to reshoot a popular film short and for distributors to duplicate a film print to show as their own. Through these practices, L'Arroseur Arrosé was copied several times and released under a number of different titles in both France and the United States, including at least one remake by the Lumières themselves. Little is known about most of these copies, although one remake was filmed by Georges Méliès, titled L'Arroseur, in 1896. In Britain, The Biter Bit was released in 1899. French New Wave director François Truffaut later included an homage to the gag in his 1958 film, Les Mistons. Current status Given its age, this short film is available to freely download from the Internet. It has also featured in a number of film collections including Landmarks of Early Film Volume 1. See also Anarchic comedy film Visual gag References External links Complete 1895 film on YouTube. Complete 1896 film on YouTube The Lumiere Institute, Lyon, France 1895 films French silent short films 1895 comedy films Films directed by Auguste and Louis Lumière French comedy films French black-and-white films 1895 short films Silent comedy films