The Extra Girl is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by F. Richard Jones and starring Mabel Normand. Produced by Mack Sennett, The Extra Girl followed earlier films about the film industry and also paved the way for later films about Hollywood, such as King Vidor's Show People (1928). It was still unusual in 1923 for filmmakers to make a film about the southern California film industry, then little more than ten years old. Still, many of the Hollywood clichés of small town girls travelling to Hollywood to become film stars are here to reinforce the myths of "Tinseltown".
Lobby card
Amabel Ethelreid Normand, better known as Mabel Normand, was an American silent film actress, director and screenwriter. She was a popular star and collaborator of Mack Sennett in their Keystone Studios films, and at the height of her career in the late 1910s and early 1920s had her own film studio and production company, the Mabel Normand Feature Film Company. On screen, she appeared in twelve successful films with Charlie Chaplin and seventeen with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, sometimes writing and directing films featuring Chaplin as her leading man.
Normand c. 1920
Roscoe Arbuckle and Normand with Luke the Dog in Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916)
Normand's crypt at Calvary Cemetery
Moviegoers Roscoe Arbuckle and Mack Sennett (foreground) argue while watching Normand onscreen in Mabel's Dramatic Career (1913)