This entry is problematic from all points of view. In an earlier version of this review I suggested it must be the hand-coloured film made with synchronised sound for the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre for the Paris Exposition of 1900 by Marguerite Vrignault (and filmed by Clément-Maurice) but I have since done a lot of work on this particular corpus of films ("The First Talkies") and doubt that this is the case. Although there is no sign otherwiser of the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre films being marketed elsewhere or of their having been exhibited after the show completed its tours in 1901-1902 and the company that produced them had been wound up, it would seem that this particular film is an exception to that somehow - no doubt through the ingenious duping of Sigmund Lubin - and found its way onto the open market.
The film made for the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre was Little Tich's "big boots" act. The film survives and, although there is no original cylinder, it is not difficult to match existing contemporary recordings with it. The film was known simply as Little Tich.
There are no other known films made in France by the real Little Tich until 1907. In 1902 a Little Tich impersonator known as Little Pich (possibly the comedian Maurice Schwartz) made a series of three films for Ferdinand Zecca at Pathé. These films, which survive, also included the "big boots" act but the film in question was called Grande scène comique and was known in English (in Britain at any rate) as The Great Boot Dance. The other two Litle Pich films were Danse espagnole and Gigue anglaise and all three films were also available as a three-four minute compilation.
The most likely candidate to be Little Tich et ses Big Boots is a film (one of three) made by the real Little Tich (Harry Relph) for Gaumont. But these films, which also survive in the Gaumont/Pathé archives, were not made in 1900 or in 1903 but in 1907 and they were not made at the time when Alice Guy was head of production at Gaumont (she left for the US in 1906) but during the time of Louis Feuillade. The two other films made were a parody of a Spanish dance and a parody of the Loïe Fuller Serpentine Dance, the "Miss Turpentine" act that Relph had devised for the stage in 1893 just a year after Fuller's surprise success at the Folies bergère in 1892.
In 1907 Pathé also produced a six-seven minute compilation of acts by the "real" Little Tich which included an act where he impersonates a British horse guard, the parody of a Spanish dance, the Loïe Fuller parody and, as a finale, the "big boot" act. There is no sign that this compilation was avalable as separate films.
While it is possible that this film was shown in the US in August 1903 and may have appeared in an earlier catalogue, it certainly appears in the Lubin catalogue for May 1905. The description entirely matches the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre film, although Relph's act probably did not vary greatly and Pich seems to have copied it fairly closely. There is nothing to suggest that this is the Little Pich film and the title that appears in the Lubin catalogue in May, Litte Tich, is the same as that of the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre film. Little Tich es ses Big Boots and Little Tich and his Funny Feet may well be variant titles. It seems that this must therefore indeed be the Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre film although it is not impossible that by 1903 it was Gaumont that was responsible for marketing it in France.
