The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra

If you ever want to know when Hollywood became such a stressful place, where people gave up their lives to be a star, usually with no return, this little short can point you to way back in the silent era.

This little heavy-handed sequence deserves a lot of respect for its experimental uses of models, lighting, and different camera techniques at the time. Today it comes off as a bit heavy handed, a bit too obvious. Even when you know what's they're doing or trying to do, you can't help but giggle: "Heh, those are models!" Still, they're interestingly designed models.

A lot of the stuff working around actors and characters would have been really strong if it wasn't really so comical (which doesn't really work within the structure of the film because the film itself is rather dark and direct). The fish-out-of-water way they open and close their mouths and the over-acting does help to give the film an absurdist feel, but it also helps to not take the film very seriously.

--PolarisDiB

Miniature expressionist sets are the real star of Life & Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (1927), & render this partially a work of animation. It's on the National Registry as a work of cultural significance.

The thirteen-minute story symbolically criticized the maltreatment of Hollywood extras.

Our naive hero, John Jones (Jules Raucourt), arrives in Art Deco Hollywood all smiles & dreams.

He has a letter of introduction that gets him hired by a casting agent (Robert Florey being quite antic in the film he wrote & co-directed).

As an extra he's known thereafter as 9413, the number being printed right on his forehead. Now begins the endless wait for his number to come up.

Other numbers become automatons with fading dreams, but 9413 struggles to remain an individual.

Earning no money, falling deeper in debt for his rent, he is slowly starving to death, while imagining he is surrounded by scorpions.

At last he dies, but continues dreaming even in his coffin. He dreams he is ascending to heaven, or perhaps he really is ascending in the form of a heroic paper cut-out silhouette. In the firmament he becomes a shining star, with wings.

Reportedly filmed for $97.00, one reason it looks so incredible is thanks to cinematographer Gregg Toland, who went on to such amazing camera work on films like Citizen Kane.

Life and Death of 9413, A Hollywood Extra (1927)

*** (out of 4)

A huge technical achievement from director Robert Florey who's best remembered today for his Bela Lugosi chiller Murders in the Rue Morgue. This short tells the story of an actor, number 9413, moving to Hollywood to become a star but hitting dirt instead. The "story" really isn't anything at all but the visuals, done through miniatures and mirrors, is quite nice to look at and pack a nice little punch.

Fans of early cinema should certainly check this out. A lot of what we see in future Florey films is on display here.

This experimental short film (around 1000') demonstrates some clever techniques for the time. Note the crossed title sequence so that neither director has top bill.

The camera work is by Gregg Toland who would later film Citizen Kane and Wuthering Heights. Rumour has it that the half lighting so characteristic of Toland's later work was achieved by accident when one of the two lights blew!

There is some interesting hand held camera work in there too.

The impact this film had was profound. Considering the year it was made:1928, and the budget being $98.

$98 in 1928 equals $1,737.64 in 2024. Which is still very low cost. The clever tools used to create the imagery, telling a story was impressive. It goes to show that having human emotion, being moved, doesn't have to entail a multi-million dollar budget. Brilliant and resourceful story line, causing intrigue and thought provoking results.

Recommended viewing. Very interesting and entertaining. Good job, on the film makers, to pull off their concept, with low tech, low cost methods of story telling.