Skip to main content
BFI logo

Home

Film

Television

People

History

Education

Tours

Help

  search

Search

Screenonline banner
Feeding the Tigers (1899)
 

BFI

Main image of Feeding the Tigers (1899)
 
35mm, black and white, silent, 50 feet
 
Production CompanyWarwick Trading Company

At the London Zoo, a young tiger is fed a piece of meat, delivered on a stick through the bars of his cage.

Show full synopsis

This straightforward single-shot actuality film was one of many made by the Warwick Trading Company in the late 1890s.

Filmed at the London Zoo in Regent's Park, the year after it celebrated its 70th birthday, it depicts one of the tigers being fed a piece of meat by one of the keepers, delivering it into its cage via the hook on the end of a pole.

The scale aside, the tiger's body language is all but identical to that of its smaller domestic relatives as it playfully paws at and grabs the hook - though the animal's obvious youth and vigour suggest that the keeper was wise to stay on the safer side of the bars.

Michael Brooke

Click titles to see or read more

Video Clips
Complete film (1:50)
GALLERY / SCRIPTS / AUDIO
SEE ALSO
Topical Budget 701-2: Tiger Tim (1925)
Topical Budget 907: In His Elements (1929)