Cinevent Past Notes: THE EXTRA GIRL

[Richard M Roberts]

By 1922, Mabel Normand’s life and career were starting to unravel. After years of being a comedy star both for Mack Sennett and Samuel Goldwyn, scandal had rocked her life, beginning with her involvement, however innocently, in the murder of Director William Desmond Taylor. Her features for Samuel Goldwyn had been slowly becoming less successful even before the scandal broke, due in no small measure to Goldwyn’s oversaturation of her films (she was making four or five a year), and a sameness of the CINDERELLA –like storylines he seemed to be putting her in. After her last feature for Goldwyn, HEAD OVER HEELS, sat on the shelf for nearly a year and was released in 1922, Goldwyn had let her go. Her friend, former lover and producer Mack Sennett came to her rescue, and she returned to the Fun Factory that had made her a star. Sennett immediately put her into an elaborate feature, titled MOLLY O and released in late 1921, and that film was already in theaters when the Taylor murder made headlines. Though initial box office receipts were good, they did trail off when Normand’s name was connected with Taylors, despite attempts by Sennett’s Studio Manager John A. Waldron to shield Normand from errant publicity surrounding the scandal.

Normand’s second Sennett feature, SUZANNA, was released in February, 1923, the first feature Sennett released through a new distributor called Allied producers and Distributors, an East-Coast firm that had ties with United Artists. SUZANNA had Normand playing a Spanish peasant girl in love with the Son of an Old California family in a romantic comedy that was perhaps a bit too complicated for its own good, but at least was not another Cinderella retread like the Goldwyn films and, frankly MOLLY O had also been. SUZANNA did okay selling tickets, despite the scandal, but it’s production costs ($287,499) had exceeded even MOLLY O as Sennett’s most expensive film to date, making even decent box office sale not enough to insure a clear profit.

While making feature starring his former girlfriend, Sennett was also looking to make features starring his alleged current girlfriend, Phyllis Haver, and in 1922, the Sennett staff began work on a feature story for the actress, work-titled MILLIE OF THE MOVIES. In February, 1923, Sennett had hired former D. W. Griffith leading man Ralph Graves to co-star with Haver in the film. At the same time, the Sennett staff was preparing another Mabel Normand feature with the title of MARY ANNE, which unfortunately read like a rehash of MOLLY O. However, everything changed by April when Sennett announced that MARY ANNE would not be Normand’s next picture and that Phyllis Haver had both left the lot and the planned feature, now retitled THE EXTRA GIRL, due to “some disagreement with the story”. Apparently Haver had started shooting the picture, as surviving production stills show her on the set with a number of the films co-stars, and the film’s original announced director, William A. Seiter. However, it was soon announced that Mabel Normand would take over the role under her favorite director, F. Richard Jones.

So THE EXTRA GIRL still manages some MOLLY O feeling to it, including the recasting of both George Nichols and Anna Hernandez to play her parents, but Cinderella never makes it to the ball or nails a rich guy. Normand plays Sue Graham, who is in love with Dave Giddings (Ralph Graves), her childhood sweetheart, but Sue’s father wants her to marry the town Apothecary Aaron Applegate (Vernon Dent, in his first role at the Sennett Studio). Yet Sue dreams of being a movie star, and enters a talent and beauty contest which she manages to win and leave town for before any betrothal takes place.

Though she does not win the talent contest or the Movie contract, Sue does find herself working in the costume department at the Mack Sennett Studio, under head tailor Max Davidson and costume mistress Louise carver no less, and this is where THE EXTRA GIRL becomes something extra indeed. As Sue works her self ragged, we are treated to some nice behind-the-scenes looks at comedy filmmaking, and a Sennett comic cameo or two. The real pity of the majority of Mabel Normand’s feature films is that they never allow her to be the whirlwind comedienne she had been in so many short comedies, too many melodramatic conventions and rags-to-riches tales get in the way. Yet THE EXTRA GIRL comes closest to any of her features (with perhaps the lone exception of the long version of her Hal Roach comedy RAGGEDY ROSE (1926) to letting Mabel Normand shine as a comic.

To distribute this new Normand feature, Sennett signed a new contract with Associated Exhibitors inc. to distribute this and MARY ANNE, which was still on the boards to go into production after this current Normand feature’s played the Country. THE EXTRA GIRL hit the theaters on October 13, 1923, and the plan was to follow with MARY ANNE as an early 1924 release, but once again, scandal would darken Mabel Normand’s life with the shooting by Mabel’s chauffeur of millionaire Courtland S. Dines on January 1, 1924. Oddly enough, Edna Purviance, Chaplin’s leading lady who was dating Dines at the time, was also present at the shooting, and the negative publicity may have done much to damage the careers of both ladies. THE EXTRA GIRL was definitely hurt financially by the scandal, and Sennett cancelled both MARY ANNE and Normand’s stay at the Studio.

Mabel Normand would be off the screen for two years before she attempted a comeback at Hal Roach that was brought about by her friend F. Richard Jones, who had left Sennett and become Roach’s Director-General. Normand made five comedies for Roach, and though they were popular with audiences, and fine comedies, Normand was forced to retire in early 1927 due to her contracting Tuberculosis, and died in 1930 at the age of 37.

For many years, the only surviving Mabel Normand starring features were those that bracketed both ends of her feature career, and both produced by Mack Sennett: MICKEY (1917) and THE EXTRA GIRL (1923). As the years have passes, several more have emerged, including her Goldwyn features THE FLOOR BELOW (1919), WHAT HAPPENED TO ROSA (1921), and HEAD OVER HEELS (1922), as well as her two other late Sennett features, MOLLY O (1921) and SUZANNA (1922). Finally her charm as a feature comedienne can begin to be fully appraised, and apart from the sameness of story already mentioned, Mabel Normand does indeed live up to her reputation as the screens first major comedienne. Though sadly already past her prime when she made THE EXTRA GIRL, there were rumors of drug addictions and the question of just how long she had indeed been suffering from tuberculosis before the fact was made public, the film gives her some of her best later opportunities as a genuine laugh-getter, and it remains a true charmer.

Another neat thing about our showing of THE EXTRA GIRL is the print we are going to see, which will bring happy nostalgia to all of we middle-aged film buffs who have Public Television to thank for introducing so many of us to the love of old film. THE EXTRA GIRL was preserved in the late 60’s from original negative materials by Film Distributor/Preservationist Paul Killiam, who then showcased it to the Nation as he did with so many other silent classics on his PBS television show, THE SILENT YEARS in 1972. Wonderfully tinted, and featuring a charming organ-score, THE EXTRA GIRL also had the good fortune, as did the rest of the films in that first season of the show, to be introduced by Orson Welles, for once dropping the cue cards (though he does consult his notes) and giving thoughtful, heartfelt reminiscences about the people from an era that, though he did not work in, got to know a number of it’s participants later on in the 1940’s when he was a Wunderkind among the Old Guard. And as it was a 90 minute/two-hour plus long series, depending on the film, with the six-reel EXTRA GIRL, we were treated to Welles narrating a lengthy and fun montage of Sennett clips to fill up that extra time.

THE SILENT YEARS brought so many of us before some great films of our past for the first time, and it was unfortunate that it was never repeated, or released on home video in their original form. Well, today, Cinevent happily presents THE EXTRA GIRL not only in a beautiful tinted print, but in the original SILENT YEARS presentation complete with words from Mr. Welles. How many of you out there will feel a sweet pang of remembrance when William Perry’s lovely opening theme emerges from the loudspeakers? Enjoy.



RICHARD M ROBERTS