The Extra Girl

Somewhere between the Rocky Mountains and Pittsburg, spunky Mabel Normand (as Sue Graham) lives in a small town. She longs to be a movie actress. When her parents arrange for Ms. Normand to wed rotund Vernon Dent (as Aaron Applejohn) instead of handsome childhood sweetheart Ralph Graves (as David "Dave" Giddings), the spirited young woman decides to leave town. Normand first agrees to elope with Mr. Graves, but she is unable to leave her loving parents. She finally exits her small Illinois town, after winning an invitation to Hollywood from the Mack Sennett studios (as the Golden State Film Company). Appropriately, her departure is in Mr. Sennett's comic style. In Hollywood, Normand is not welcomed as a potential star. The photo she sent was switched with a beautiful young star, by a rival for Graves' attentions. Instead, the studio gives the teary-eyed Normand a job in their wardrobe department...

"The Extra Girl" is not a confident feature-length story, mixing styles with inconsistent success. Although the title presumes Normand becomes an "extra" on her way to becoming a movie star, it never happens. In the film's comic highlight, she does manage a screen test. Norman also takes a lion for a walk around the studio lot, thinking he's "Teddy" the Great Dane. The former canine superstar has a subdued cameo. An obviously villainous Ramsey Wallace (as T. Phillip Hackett) swindles Normand's pitiful parents George Nichols and Anna Hernandez (as Pa and Ma Graham) out of a small fortune and Graves joins them to steal the picture. Normand and Sennett parted after this film and she attempted one more feature before returning to shorts, the genre which made her a popular teenage star. Formerly considered to be one of the screen's finest comediennes, Normand was beset by personal problems and never regained her footing.

****** The Extra Girl (10/28/23) F. Richard Jones ~ Mabel Normand, Ralph Graves, George Nichols, Ramsey Wallace

Cute, fast-paced romantic comedy starring Mabel Normand as a small town girl who wants to be an actress and has two local rivals for her affections - Aaron Applejohn (Vernon Dent), not exactly a heartthrob, but well-to-do (her dad's choice for a son-in-law, of course) and Dave (Ralph Graves), her handsome longtime sweetheart who she loves. Mabel decides to mail in her photo to a Hollywood movie contest, but the "Widow Brown" decides to help things along and hopefully get Mabel out of town (and get Dave for herself) by switching the photo in the envelope to one of a beautiful young woman (hmmm - I think Mabel is beautiful too, so why the switch?!). Anyway, in the meantime dad decides to MAKE her marry Applejohn (and is actually ready to take his belt to her!) when the telegram from Hollywood arrives saying she won the contest - just in the nick of time! When she arrives and the movie studio sees that she is not the same woman, she is put to work in the costume department. Soon her parents, and Dave too, are all in Hollywood with her - but nothing works out the way she expects.

Well, this film is well done and full of fun - Mabel is a charmer in this, as usual, I just love her expressive face! There is a lively, fast chase at one point, where Mabel is trying to get to the train station before she has to get married, with dad and Applejohn in hot pursuit - all well done on real rural (looked like suburban twenties L.A.) streets. I also enjoyed the scene where Mabel leads a lion through the studio, under the belief it is actually "Teddy the dog" in a lion suit - quite amusing. The DVD version of this I saw featured a very decent looking print and excellent piano score by composer Ben Model that really suited the film well. A very entertaining film.

Normand stars as a small-town girl who wants to be an actress. Through a trick, she wins a contest and goes to Hollywood to be a star. When the studio realizes the pictures sent in was not her, she's put in the wardrobe department. Choppy plot and rough transitions (heavy cutting?) don't help the story, but Normand is a winner. She's a cross between Harry Langdon and Giulietta Masina (especially in La Strada). Several very funny bits involving a lion and some gum. Her screen test is very funny. Ralph Graves is surprisingly good as a boy friend her follows her west. Graves didn't make it in talkies and usually played the stuffy best friend. But he's loose and funny here. Vernon Dent (from many Three Stooges shorts) is the jilted lover. The imposing Louise Carver is the wardrobe boss. George Nichols and Anna Hernandez play the parents. Normand remains a tragic Hollywood figure despite her huge stardom in the teens and early 20s and her work with Chaplin and Arbuckle. Her association with the still-unsolved murder of director, William Desmond Taylor, killed her career. She died in 1930 at 36 or 37. She made only a handful of films after this little gem. With Marie Dressler, Normand was one of the first cinema comediennes, and she is quite good in The Extra (as in screen extra) Girl. It sure looks like Normand in there with the lion and doing stunts off the back of a train. Remarkable. But Normand will be remembered by buffs for The Extra Girl and for the first comedy feature, Tillie's Punctured Romance.

Note: the grass widow, Belle Brown, was listed in the film credits as being played by Mary Mason. The IMDb lists her as played by Charlotte Mineau. Did Mineau use this other name?

Mabel plays Sue Graham, a small-town girl whose picture is mixed up with that of a much prettier girl that a movie studio decides they want to put under contract. When Sue arrives on the scene, the studio discovers its mistake and assigns Sue to the props department. Sue does overcome adversity, but not before she mistakes a dog dressed as a lion for an actual lion and her parents come out to Hollywood for a visit and end up exchanging their life's savings for some worthless oil stock. Note Vernon Dent, later of the Columbia comic shorts and specifically the Three Stooges series, as Sue's unwanted suitor.

"The Extra Girl" is one of the more charming silent films I have enjoyed recently, and it's too bad Mabel Normand is remembered more for the Hollywood scandals of the roaring 20's than her charming comic persona in silent films. Her frequent costar, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, suffered a much worse fate - the end of his career - over a crime of which he was acquitted. Like The Primitive Lover, I'm surprised more people haven't seen this film. Check it out, you won't regret it. The best existing DVD copies are in very good shape, and detail is clearly visible. There are only a few signs of deterioration towards the middle of the film.

The Extra Girl (1923)

*** (out of 4)

Producer Mack Sennett and star Mabel Normand made a great number of films together but this here would turn out to be the last one as they'd go their separate ways and not to mention that this was filmed during the actresses troubled aftermath of the William Desmond Taylor murder. In the film Normand plays a small town girl who decides to go to Hollywood where she knows she's gonna make it big. As soon as she hits town she gets a job but it's not in front of the camera but instead behind it sweeping floors. Soon her parents and her sweetheart (Ralph Graves) come to visit her and things don't get better. THE EXTRA GIRL is far from perfect but I thought it had enough very good moments to make it worth sitting through and not to mention some fine performances. Many have labeled this a comedy but I think that's pretty far-fetched as there's really not any funny moments throughout the film. The majority of the time is actually dealing with some dark subjects and situations and not to mention we get some pretty intense sequences that would have made D.W. Griffith proud. One such sequence has Normand accidentally letting a lion loose, which then goes on a chase throughout the studio. This sequence was extremely well shot and edited and you can feel the creature breathing down your spine. The ending, which I won't spoil, is also excellently done and contains some first rate drama. Normand is extremely good in her role as you can believe her every step of the way. She's perfectly charming in the picture and I thought she handled the drama just fine. Graves, probably best remembered for his films with Frank Capra, is also excellent in his role as are supporting players Vernon Dent, George Nichols and Anna Dodge.