| The Extra Girl | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | F. Richard Jones |
| Produced by | Mack Sennett |
| Written by | Bernard McConville Mack Sennett |
| Starring | Mabel Normand Ralph Graves George Nichols |
| Cinematography | Eric Crockett Homer Scott |
| Distributed by | Associated Exhibitors |
| Release date(s) | October 28, 1923 |
| Running time | 68 mins. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent film English intertitles |
The Extra Girl is a 1923 American silent comedy film starring Mabel Normand. Produced by Mack Sennett, The Extra Girl followed earlier films about the film industry and also paved the way for later films about Hollywood, such as King Vidor’s Show People (1928). It was still unusual in 1923 for filmmakers to make a film about the southern California film industry, then little more than ten years old. Still, many of the Hollywood clichés of small town girls travelling to Hollywood to become film stars are here to reinforce the myths of Tinseltown.
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Sue Graham (Normand) is a small town girl who wants to be a motion picture star. She wins a contract when a picture of a very pretty girl is sent to a studio instead of her picture. When she arrives in Hollywood, the mistake is discovered and she starts working in the props department of the studio instead. Her parents then come out to California and invest some money with a very shifty individual.
When small town girl Sue goes to Hollywood to escape marriage, she arrives expecting open arms. Since the circumstances of her being called to California were the result of another’s deception, the studio manager gives Sue a job in the studio’s costume department instead. Childhood friend Dave follows. Eventually, Sue gets the opportunity to screen test but it turns out disastrously--although in a nod to the actress behind the character the director calls her "a natural comedian." Meanwhile, a crooked investor swindles Sue’s parents out of their life savings. Dave and Sue retrieve the money and all turns out well, despite the unsuccessful film career.
Actors Billy Bevan and William Desmond appear as themselves. Producer Mack Sennett can be glimpsed briefly as a straw-hatted onlooker at Sue's screen test.
Directed by F. Richard Jones, the film features several shots of semi-rural Southern California (the Edendale area along present-day Glendale Boulevard, where Sennett's studio was located) showing houses and streets of the early 1920s, and of a Hollywood studio in action. One shot in particular, a high-angle view, shows a film set, with actors, two cameras and operators, several production people, and a mood orchestra composed of a pianist and violinist, to set the proper mood for the actors. Another shows an open stage with crew scrambling up scaffolding to the sunlight diffusing panels above.