# The Extra Girl
**The Extra Girl** is a 1923 American silent comedy directed by F. [Richard Jones](https://www.edgepedia.org/richard-jones), produced by [Mack Sennett](https://www.edgepedia.org/mack-sennett), and starring [Mabel Normand](https://www.edgepedia.org/mabel-normand) as Sue Graham, a small-town girl who wins a Hollywood movie contract through a switched photograph and then finds herself assigned to the wardrobe department instead of the screen.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_extra_girl) It was Normand's last feature film and her last picture with Sennett, her one-time sweetheart and a leading comedy producer of the era.[3](https://ytb.my/movie/the-extra-girl-1923) • [4](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=38d4e3ee6573525397a58f1a49cd63a63a3fd8b8&repid=rep1&type=pdf)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | Premiered 24 September 1923 at the Mission theater, Los Angeles; general release 28 October 1923; New York opening 20 January 1924[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) |
| Director / producer | F. Richard Jones; Mack Sennett Productions, distributed by Associated Exhibitors[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) |
| Writers | Scenario by Bernard McConville, from a screen story by Mack Sennett[5](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/E/ExtraGirl1923.html) |
| Cast | Mabel Normand (Sue Graham), Ralph Graves (Dave Giddings), George Nichols (Pa Graham), Anna Hernandez (Ma Graham), Vernon Dent (Aaron Applejohn)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) |
| Format | Silent, black and white, 35 mm, 1.33:1; AFI lists 6–7 reels, Silent Era lists six reels / 5,750 feet[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) • [5](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/E/ExtraGirl1923.html) |
| Budget | Between $350,000 and $500,000 over a six-month production[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) |
| Rights | Copyright registered 9 November 1923 (LU19583); the US film print entered the public domain on 1 January 2019[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) • [6](https://bitgitty.github.io/rightsatlas/film/the-extra-girl-1923/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
In River Bend, a Midwestern town, Sue Graham evades Aaron Applejohn, a prosperous druggist her father wants her to marry.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) To escape the match she enters a movie contest held by the Golden State Film Company in Hollywood and gives her photograph and entry form to her boyfriend Dave to mail.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) A studio receives a photograph of a different, more attractive girl in place of Sue's picture and offers a contract on the strength of it; when Sue reaches Hollywood the error comes to light, and because the deception was another person's doing the studio manager gives her work in the costume department.[7](https://www.netflixmovies.com/the-extra-girl-1923) Sue persuades her parents and Dave to join her in California, but when her folks are swindled out of their savings, getting even with the con man becomes more important to her than stardom.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_extra_girl) Her botched screen test ends with the director tagging her a natural comedian.[3](https://ytb.my/movie/the-extra-girl-1923)
## Production
The 6 January 1923 Motion Picture News reported that Sennett would begin production around 10 January 1923 with Phyllis Haver in the title role and F. Richard "Dick" Jones directing. Three months later the trade press announced that Haver had been replaced by Normand, Sennett's former lover and employee, with William Seiter directing; after Normand signed a long-term contract with Sennett in April 1923, Jones was reinstated as director.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) The picture was completed over a six-month period on a budget of between $350,000 and $500,000.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL)
**The River Bend set.** Sennett searched California without success for a location resembling "River Bend," the small town of the screenplay. To address this, Jones had the Sennett stages in Los Angeles build a 20,000-square-foot River Bend set, which included the weathered family home belonging to the film's title character.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) Working at the Edendale studio operated by Sennett, Homer Scott shot the picture; his footage covers a view taken from above of a set showing two cameras alongside a pianist and violinist, as well as an image of crew members climbing up to the sunlight diffusers.[3](https://ytb.my/movie/the-extra-girl-1923)
The film carried the working titles *Phyllis Haver Story* and *Millie of the Movies*, and was Sennett production number 110.[5](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/E/ExtraGirl1923.html) Billy Bevan and William Desmond appear as themselves, and Sennett is briefly visible in a straw hat at Sue's screen test.[3](https://ytb.my/movie/the-extra-girl-1923)
## The lion scene
The film's signature set-piece has Sue leading a real lion, Numa, by a rope around the movie sets while believing it is only Teddy the dog in costume.[4](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=38d4e3ee6573525397a58f1a49cd63a63a3fd8b8&repid=rep1&type=pdf) During shooting Numa got loose and lunged at Normand, who fainted; the trainer jabbed at the animal with a pitchfork, missed, and struck her instead.[3](https://ytb.my/movie/the-extra-girl-1923) • [7](https://www.netflixmovies.com/the-extra-girl-1923)
## Release and aftermath
The premiere on 24 September 1923 at the Mission theater in Los Angeles drew an enthusiastic audience and critical response, and the engagement was held over indefinitely, breaking box-office records in its first week.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL) In August 1923, after the film was finished, Normand was a hospital patient recuperating from a collarbone injury; she was embroiled in scandals surrounding the 1922 murder of director [William Desmond Taylor](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-desmond-taylor) and her chauffeur's January 1924 shooting of Courtland Dines, and formal bans on her films were imposed in some communities.[4](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=38d4e3ee6573525397a58f1a49cd63a63a3fd8b8&repid=rep1&type=pdf) • [12](https://www.tcm.com/articles/495880/the-extra-girl) In April 1924 she went on a nationwide theater circuit promoting The Extra Girl and clearing her name; the tour gained her sympathy and the bans were eventually lifted, with the film doing excellent business. The publicity costs to Sennett were immense, however, and he afterwards scrapped *Mary Anne*, intended as her next project, ending their long working relationship.[4](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=38d4e3ee6573525397a58f1a49cd63a63a3fd8b8&repid=rep1&type=pdf)
## The "extra girl" phenomenon
The title refers to a topic of widespread concern in the early 1920s, the "extra girl": a movie-struck young woman who headed to Hollywood for extra work, and who could easily be exploited financially and sexually. That anxiety was strong enough to prompt industry responses including the formation of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in 1921, the Central Casting Bureau in 1925, and the Hollywood Studio Club in 1926.[8](https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/f3eb07af-5d52-48e7-8755-f150e533e6a0/content) Scholars place the film in a lineage of female star narratives about the "movie-struck girl" that runs from *The Extra Girl* and *Souls for Sale* (both 1923) to later pictures such as *Alice in Movieland* (1940).[9](https://academic.oup.com/book/11157/chapter-abstract/159619063) Justin Gautreau, a scholar of Hollywood fiction, has argued that studios produced comedy versions of the extra girl narrative to reduce the surplus of aspirants in Hollywood, while 1920s female novelists revised the same material to warn young women against a system they saw as exploiting them; talkies such as *What Price Hollywood?* (1932) and *A Star Is Born* (1937) later absorbed that subversive literary genre.[10](https://academic.oup.com/adaptation/article-abstract/7/3/229/2642009) The film also paved the way for later Hollywood self-portraits, including [King Vidor](https://www.edgepedia.org/king-vidor)'s *Show People* (1928).[7](https://www.netflixmovies.com/the-extra-girl-1923)
## Preservation and availability
Prints exist on 35 mm positive, and the film is in the holdings of Gierucki Studios LLC; it is public domain in the United States.[5](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/E/ExtraGirl1923.html) • [6](https://bitgitty.github.io/rightsatlas/film/the-extra-girl-1923/) It has been released on DVD by Kino International with a commissioned score, and on Blu-ray by Flicker Alley; those releases' scores and restorations remain protected independently of the 1923 footage.[6](https://bitgitty.github.io/rightsatlas/film/the-extra-girl-1923/) A transfer is also available on the [Internet Archive](https://www.edgepedia.org/internet-archive), and the film streams on services including Tubi and Fandor.[3](https://ytb.my/movie/the-extra-girl-1923) • [11](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/the-extra-girl)
## References
1. [The Extra Girl (1923), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/8890-THE-EXTRA-GIRL)
2. [The Extra Girl, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_extra_girl)
3. [The Extra Girl (1923), YTB.my Classic Cinema](https://ytb.my/movie/the-extra-girl-1923)
4. [Mabel Normand, CiteSeerX research paper](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?doi=38d4e3ee6573525397a58f1a49cd63a63a3fd8b8&repid=rep1&type=pdf)
5. [The Extra Girl (1923), Progressive Silent Film List, Silent Era](https://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/E/ExtraGirl1923.html)
6. [Is The Extra Girl (1923) public domain?, RightsAtlas](https://bitgitty.github.io/rightsatlas/film/the-extra-girl-1923/)
7. [The Extra Girl (1923), NetflixMovies.com](https://www.netflixmovies.com/the-extra-girl-1923)
8. ["A Room and the Right Kind of People," University of Oregon Scholars' Bank](https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/f3eb07af-5d52-48e7-8755-f150e533e6a0/content)
9. [Steven Cohan, "Movie-Struck Hollywood," Hollywood by Hollywood, Oxford Academic](https://academic.oup.com/book/11157/chapter-abstract/159619063)
10. [Justin Gautreau, "'Movie Plots Pushed into Prose': The Extra Girl, Will Hays, and the Novel of Silent Hollywood," Adaptation 7.3 (2014)](https://academic.oup.com/adaptation/article-abstract/7/3/229/2642009)
11. [The Extra Girl, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/the-extra-girl)
12. [The Extra Girl](https://www.tcm.com/articles/495880/the-extra-girl)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › Silent genre and exploitation features*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license