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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. (***)

An entertaining little comedy starring Mabel Normand, the beautiful funny girl who in her heyday was as famous as Chaplin but who is sadly mostly remembered today as a footnote to the spate of sex and drug scandals that afflicted Hollywood in the early twenties. At nearly thirty she does looks a bit old to be playing an ingénue, but she's nevertheless quite appealing as the scrappy but naïve farm girl Sue with her old fashioned ringlets and homemade dresses who is determined to take Hollywood by storm. She doesn't, and the movie rather than being a rags to riches chronicle you might have been expecting becomes a relatively prosaic account of the fate of thousands of girls who tried to make it in Hollywood, failed but ended up happy enough with ordinary lives as wives and mothers. The movie doesn't dwell too much on its more realistic elements, however, and viewers are most likely to remember those amusing set pieces as when Sue's overbearing father attempts to force her to get out of bed and dress for her wedding or (the highlight of the film) when Mabel, now working as a lackadaisical prop girl, mistakes a lion for a dog dressed up in a shoddy lion's costume and nonchalantly leads it about the set on a leash to the horror of onlookers.

"The Extra Girl" is good introduction to the work of a talented comedienne who deserves to be better know today.

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?

This is not the usual Keystone comedy that we associate with Miss Normand. However, it should be understood that no 'Madcap Mabel' pictures had been produced since 1916, and the last of these contained little slapstick. The post-Goldwyn Sennett films are a build up to Extra Girl, which may be seen as the culmination of Mabel's art.

Extra Girl is a Cinderella story – sort of. The twist is that the heroine, Sue Graham, does not find happiness by marrying a prince, but an old friend. This plot is in total agreement with a then-current Hollywood maxim that no-one should come to tinsel town expecting to be put into movies, let alone become a star. Of course, Sue does go to Hollywood, but, for several reasons, finds life very tough indeed.

In the early scenes, Mabel is very pretty and passes tolerably well for the teenage small-town girl Sue with her banana curls. However, when she throws her arms around Ralph and exclaims 'My Sheik', the straining in her neck and face put more than a few years on her apparent age. By contrast, when she falls back into Ralph's arms, her face becomes relaxed and Mabel is instantly, and radiantly, beautiful. She is, fleetingly, the dying Cleopatra.

Mabel demonstrates a whole repertoire of facial expressions and eye movements while showing Ralph her acting ability. These are definitely worthy of the 'old Mabel'. Curiously, Mabel also uses certain facial expressions that are reminiscent of Stan Laurel. Now Stan didn't use these until after 1930, and after Mabel had collaborated with him at Hal Roach studios. I leave it to others to determine where the 'world's greatest mimic' got his famous face from. Elsewhere Mabel uses some of the classically cute Keystone Girl actions, like the poignant wave from the train, her head forward and one shoulder pulled up protectively (last seen in Mabel At The Wheel). Equally cute is the way she leans forward and points while delivering a firm message to the studio owner (also seen in Suzanna).

In this film, Mabel is fairly slim, but not overly so. Compared to the Mabel of, say, 'A Spanish Dilemma' (1912), Mabel does seem strangely flat chested, indicating, perhaps, that the common Sennett practice of chest strapping was used here. It is also clear that in some scenes, especially later in the film, Mabel looks quite ill and drained. Apparently, scenes requiring Mabel to look out of salts (e.g. when she was being married off and when her acting career was failing) were filmed on her worst days. The effects of the W.D. Taylor scandal cannot be underestimated in respect of these observations. It is odd to see Mabel in the film lying in wait for the swindler of her parents with a gun, considering the W.D. Taylor affair – a joke too far. The effect is doubled, as the Courtland Dines shooting occurred just after the film's completion, and another Dines affair weapon, a bottle, appears in the scene. Other aspects of the film that may reflect reality are the location of the Graham household at River Bend and the great swindle. Mabel had a good friend, Helen Holmes (of 'Hazards of Helen' fame), who originated in South Bend Indiana (like River Bend, between Pittsburgh and the Rocky Mountains). Helen's family were swindled of their money when they first moved to California.

Mabel ends up being a wardrobe girl, but persuades a director to give her a screen test. Due to various events the test turns out to be a hilarious farce. The wardrobe girl is wearing an old-fashioned crinoline hooped dress with the usual long pantalettes underneath. Unbeknown to her, as she bends over to pick some love letters up she exposes her white pantalettes, which have acquired the black imprint of a prop man's glove (she sat on the glove earlier). Everyone behind the camera begins to laugh, including Mack Sennett who has suddenly appeared in the scene. Was he there to ogle Mabel in her underwear, or was he there to laugh at the joke?

The best part of the film occurs later on when Mabel leads a lion around the studio thinking it is the Keystone dog, Teddy. It is hilarious to see the various actors running for their lives, while Mabel walks around totally oblivious to the danger. Mabel herself told a story about the director making her come close to the camera with the lion in tow, following which there was a sudden noise in the studio. This unnerved the lion who jumped and knocked Mabel flat, whereupon he bit into her posterior. However, it transpired that the 'bite' was the penetration of a pointed implement wielded by the director in order to drive the lion off – he'd missed! After the lion breaks away he chases Mabel around the studio in the old cranked-up way, with our heroine jumping and jerking in the old cranked-up way.

The Dines affair should have destroyed the box-office take of this film. However, Mack and Mabel (who had a 25% stake in the profits) made a supreme, nationwide effort to save it and were successful in their efforts. In court, nonetheless, Mabel ridiculed the prosecutors, and, as the newspapers were quick to relay, affected a pompous English accent and made continuous 'French' hand gestures. Mabel's career trickled away following the affair, and Mack canceled her next film 'Mary Anne'.

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

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.

Mabel Normand sure had funny-looking eyebrows in "The Extra Girl." But she was so charming, even her funny-looking eyebrows did not in any way detract.

Madcap Mable, as she was often called, gave a superb performance here, far beyond the knockabout roles she might be best known for.

She was simply adorable.

And she was ably aided by a cast of talented performers, most of whom are not well known today, but who should be at least by silent movie fans.

Director F. Richard Jones used a moving camera to brilliant effect, and I was frequently sitting open-mouthed at his work when watching "The Extra Girl" on Turner Classic Movies' Sunday Night Silents 10 April 2016.

His fight scenes were the most realistic I have ever seen in films prior to the choreographing by Yakima Canutt and his ilk. Very believable and I wondered if the actors escaped uninjured.

Mack Sennett gets credit for the story, which bounces around a lot, but always holds together, perhaps credit for which goes to script writer Bernard McConville.

The ending seemed tacked on, but again even the toddler gave such a good performance, one should not complain.

There were, to stress the point, so many excellent performances, it is hard to brag about all of them in a limited space.

Vernon Dent, though, so often a cardboard or stereotyped tough guy, gets a real role here, and plays it perfectly. I was surprised, having seen him so often against such as Charlie Chaplin, to see he was actually rather short, certainly as contrasted to the very likable Ralph Graves, who gave what must have been one of his best performances in one of his best roles.

Probably TCM will show this again, on its regular schedule if not On Demand. I do urge you to see it. It is excellent.

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.

She was the actress who was the first recipient of a pie thrown in her face captured on film. She was the first to realize the great potential in a young Charlie Chaplin after his disastrous cinematic debut and convinced studio owner Mack Sennett to give him a second chance. Actress Mabel Normand had been with Sennett's Keystone Studio since it relocated to California in 1912. In October 1923's "The Extra Girl," Normand played her last role for Sennett. She later signed with producer Hal Roach for her final feature film, 1926's 'Raggedy Rose,' while starring in four shorts before her life abruptly ended at 37 with tuberculosis.

Film critics claim "The Extra Girl" is Normand's best movie in her career. "She is one of the actresses that the screen cannot spare." a reviewer at Photoplay wrote at the time. "Few have her freshness, her piquancy, her gift for comedy." Her portrayal is of an Indiana farm girl who dreams of stardom in Hollywood, makes the journey on a mistaken offer by a studio, only to find work at the studio's costume shop after being rejected to act. But Normand's persistence gets her an audition, with hilarious results.

The audition sequence offers a fascinating look at movie-making in the early 1920's. A wide high-angle shot reveals two cameras side by side cranking away, a practice studios undertook to insure two prints for editing. A pianist and a violinist are seen at the side playing music, setting the mood to inspire the actors.

I must say I have never been a big fan of Mabel's - lose interest pretty quickly in anything I've attempted to watch, but I really enjoyed this one and mainly due to the impressive camera work and the fact that unless they could employ camera tricks, it would appear she's doing her own stunts! The scene where she and Ralph Graves are fleeing in that horse drawn cart (basically) was unbelievable - for both of them frankly. I know in those days actors' lives weren't as highly valued (read: insured) as they came to be but this was something. Kudos to her.