The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra

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.

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.

Prolific television and second feature director Robert Florey teamed with Gregg Toland and others to produce this dark short around the advent of sound. It's a rather acerbic comic work that suggests instead of going west young man, better to stay put.

An optimistic fellow sets his sight on Hollywood stardom and takes Greeley's advice. Starting in at the bottom floor he is assigned an impersonal number for identification. Dehumanization of the spirit follows as reality sets in, employment wavers and bills pile up.

This avant garde word to the wise features some sharp camera work, dissolves and double exposure for its day. Well edited, it has a tragi-comic touch that remains unrelenting in its condemnation of the industry. A deceptively disturbing work in miniature.

For more detailed information on this 11 minute silent film short from 1928 see the IMDb comments submitted by another reviewer here who described this film very educational detail. I recently saw this experimental film and found it very strange and oddly entertaining. It stars unknown actor George Voya as The Star and Jules Raucourt as 9413. Raucourt had a brief film career in lead roles and became a character actor and ironically an extra himself in the later stages of his career. Here Raucourt is a Hollywood extra with the number 9413 penned across his forehead. Voya who never launched an acting career is ironically The Star with a star drawn on his forehead. Adriane Marsh is a Hollywood extra that makes good. Director/producer/writer Robert Florey is the cigar chomping, telephone talking casting director in close up of his mouth and hands only. A black background with shadowing is used with paper cutouts and masks used as props and scenery. Florey and special effects/ writer/ director/editor Slavo Vorkapich co-wrote and co-directed this film. It was also the third and final film that young cinematographer Gregg Toland worked on with Florey and Vorkapich. Toland would go on to photograph such films as Wuthering Hwights. Intermezzo, The Grapes of Wrath, The Outlaw, Citizen Kane, The Best Years of Our Lives and The Bishops Wife among the many films in his talented career that earned him an Academy Award and six nominations before his untimely death at the age of 44 from heart disease in 1948. It's interesting here to see the early work of the budding genius of Toland. Florey enjoyed a long career as a director of B movies before moving into television in the 50's and 60's and directing dozens of popular series episodes like The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Outer Limits and Thriller. Again it's interesting to the work of a man like Florey who had a 40 plus year career in film early in that career and on a small budget. This film has been selected for preservation by the National Film Registry and deemed culturally significant by the Library of Congress. It's worth 11 minutes of your time to check it out if you are interested in the history and evolution of film. It's an experimental film and I would give this a 7 out of 10.

The ultra-low budget of this film clearly shows in the extreme close-ups of faces, searchlights and office space (avoiding the need for background sets!) and stylised landscape model work: but it forms a surreal style all of its own, as extra 9413 learns to mouth 'blah blah blah' instead of talking and don bland masks instead of his own face... none of which does him any good in a world where the 'Casting today' signs always slide out further to reveal their true nature: "NO casting today". His female counterpart, dancing puppet-like to the director's tune (and perhaps his casting couch?) does rather better.

In this film, Hollywood is Hell and bliss is to become a free man and not a number. Sardonic social commentary without a single word.