The Extra Girl

The Extra Girl (1923)

Small-town girl turns movie world upside down. Screen-struck Sue Graham messes up love affairs, upsets picture studios and the fun comes fast and furious. Mabel Normand's laugh sensation.

Sue Graham 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.

Date of release
1923-10-28
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (18)
Runtime
1h 9m
Genres
Comedy, Romance, Crime
Director
F. Richard Jones

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Los Angeles

The Extra Girl is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by F. Richard Jones and 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".

Production

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.

While filming the lion scene, the lion at one point broke free and lunged for Normand, who fainted in terror. The trainer attempted to subdue the lion by jabbing it with a pitchfork, but in the confusion missed and hit Normand instead.

The Extra Girl was Normand's final feature film and her last film working with producer Sennett.

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