The Extra Girl

It has taken quite a while for THE EXTRA GIRL to make it to commercial DVD and now that it's finally here, we should all be grateful. But with that gratitude there should be some sadness as well for this 1923 film was the beginning of the end for one of the silent era's most gifted performers. Mabel Normand (1892-1930) began her career as a model for Charles Dana Gibson before breaking into films with Biograph in 1909. She moved over to Vitagraph and then left to be with Mack Sennett at Keystone in 1912.

In addition to being the silent era's greatest comedienne she was among the first women to write and direct her own material. She also directed Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle but was never given credit for it. She successfully moved from shorts to feature films before her run of bad luck began. Implicated but never charged in a series of scandals including the unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor, Mabel's career as a star unraveled during the 1920's. Drugs and alcohol aggravated the tuberculosis she had lived with for many years and she died at the age of 37 right at the dawn of the sound era.

Her association with Chaplin, Arbuckle, and the Keystone Kops have kept her face before the public but so little of her other work has survived and almost none of it is on DVD. This Kino release of THE EXTRA GIRL along with the 1913 Keystone one reeler THE GUSHER will certainly help. It also shows how much the nature of American film comedy evolved over 10 years. The visual quality of this disc taken from a 1969 Killiam Collection print is excellent with an organ soundtrack provided by Jack Ward that is above average for Killiam.

The story of a small town girl who goes to Hollywood has been done many times but Normand makes it her own even though at 30 she's too old for the role and it shows. You can watch her physical appearance change throughout the film reflecting the health problems she was dealing with. Nevertheless the backstage look at moviemaking, Normand's screen test, the escaped lion sequence, and the unhappy/happy ending are among many highlights the film has to offer...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

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.

Country girl Mabel Normand travels to Hollywood in the hope of becoming a movie star after winning a competition, without realising that her love rival for the boy-next-door, Ralph Graves, substituted a glamour photo for her own, so she ends up working in the costume department. Normand's health problems were finally beginning to take their toll when she made this pleasant but unremarkable comedy, and the William Desmond Taylor affair had irreparably damaged her career, but she still makes a winning heroine. Highlights include her disastrous audition and a lion on the loose in the studio.

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.

THE EXTRA GIRL (Pathe' Exchange, 1923), a Mack Sennett production, directed by F. Richard Jones, is a feature-length silent comedy starring Mabel Normand. With story and supervision by Mack Sennett, there's no traditional Keystone Kops nor climatic car chases, but basically a semi-comedy of one girl's dream to become a movie star and how almost everything seems to go in the wrong direction.

Opening with a title card: "Between the Rocky Mountains and Pittsburgh, but a long way from Hollywood, lies River Bend (Illinois) where the Graham family lives," followed by introduction to characters: "Pa" Graham (George Nichols), who runs a River Bend garage that was once his blacksmith shop; Aaron Appleton (Vernon Dent), a well-to-do druggist and Graham's choice for his future son-in-law; "Ma" Graham (Anna Hernandez) a wife and mother who copes with her movie struck daughter, Sue (Mabel Normand) by sitting back in her rocking chair and watching her act, as does Dave Giddings (Ralph Graves), Sue's childhood sweetheart and neighborhood mechanic. Realizing that their attachment to one another is more than "puppy love," "Pa" Graham insists Dave is to no longer visit Sue, and have Aaron calling and have her as his future bride. While answering a movie contest advertisement, Sue submits her frightful photograph. About to mail out her entry form, Sue finds she's unable to leave her parents and decides against it. Wanting to see Sue fulfill her dream, Dave has Belle Brown (Charlotte Mineau), known as the "grass widow," submit the photo herself. Wanting Dave all to herself and Sue out of the way, Belle substitutes her own photo over Sue's instead. Having not heard anything about the movie contest, Sue reluctantly agrees to please her father by marrying Aaron. Moments before the wedding is to take place, Dave arrives with a telegram that Sue has won the contest, and must catch the next train to Hollywood within fifteen minutes. With Dave's help, Sue escapes from her dreaded wedding and races over to the train station with Pa Graham and Aaron in hot pursuit. As the train pulls out, Sue watches her father at a distance and tearfully bids him farewell, with the old man waving back with his rejected would-be son-in-law beside him. Arriving at the Golden State Film Company, Sue meets with the studio manager who realizes the photos have been switched. Instead of getting a screen test, the studio manager, telling Sue to return home, decides on giving her a break working in the wardrobe department. Sometime later Dave comes to Hollywood, and to be near her, acquires employment at the same studio as a stage hand. As for the Grahams, it's Christmas and they become lonely for Sue. The couple decide to sell their home and accompany their daughter in the movie capital of the world, in spite the fact that she's not yet acted in a motion picture. Situations become more complex when Sue falls into the clutches of T. Philip Hackett (Ramsey Wallace), who swindles her parents by investing their entire savings in some"worthless oil stock.

Mabel Normand, whose movie career began with comedy shorts as early 1910, was nearing the end of her career by the time THE EXTRA GIRL went into theatrical release in early 1923. With other movies similar in theme dealing with the ups and downs of a movie hopeful (The 1926 release of ELLA CINDERS starring Colleen Moore, being one of the better ones), THE EXTRA GIRL goes a step further, taking a realistic approach as to what happens when a talented small town girl fails to succeed. Not precisely as sad as it all seems, THE EXTRA GIRL does present itself with some good intentional comedy. The most famous one involving Mabel mistaking a lion for a tamed one named Teddy, toggling the king of beasts on a rope behind her, eventually leading to a wild chase around the studio set after she discovers that she has the wrong lion. This five minute sequence must have stirred roars of laughter back then. Another funny scene finds Mabel making her screen test opposite actor William Desmond in a period setting wearing her hoop skirt and pantelettes. During the filming, she accidentally sits on a black glove leaving a hand print on her bottom tush, conveniently captured on film whenever she bends down. A screen test for a costume drama provokes laughter from the staff working behind the camera, but distresses the director, of course.

Aside from appearing a bit too old to be wearing those Mary Pickford curls during most of the story, indicating that the character of Sue Graham being a teenager or a girl of her early twenties, Mabel Normand, does show signs of exhaustion and worry, possibly due to personal problems of her own or over extensive retakes during production.

THE EXTRA GIRL, at 70 minutes (possibly longer in its initial premiere), was one of thirteen selected silent features to be presented during the summer months in the PBS weekly series of "The Silent Years" (1971), as hosted by Orson Welles, accompanied with an organ score by Jack Ward. In later years it turned up on cable television's Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: September 20, 2012, with piano score). As for her final screen appearance in a feature length comedy, the movie itself isn't as good as one would want it to be, but in spite of mixed comments and reputation, it can only be enjoyed by those who appreciate rare finds like Mabel Normand as THE EXTRA GIRL. Available on video and DVD from Kino International. (***)