Still from The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra.
United States
English
00:13:00
35mm
B&W
Silent
"Robert Florey and Slavko Vorkapich created one of the most creative (particularly in light of its reputed $97 budget) and bleakest of the early avant-garde films. Photographed by Gregg Toland, who would become best known for his work on "Citizen Kane," the film is the time-worn tale of a movie extra (Jules Raucort) marginalized by one casting director after another until he's seen only as a number symbolically appearing on his forehead. The ultra simplistic sets and props, made of toys and cardboard buildings projected like shadows, help to create intricate German Expressionistic cityscapes reminiscent at times of "Metropolis." " National Film Registry.
See Brian Taves' short essay "The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra" for the Library of Congress, and his essay "Robert Florey and the Hollywood Avant-Garde" in Lovers of Cinema: The First American Film Avant-Garde, 1919–1945 edited by Jan-Christopher Horak.
The film is included in Unseen Cinema, Disc 2 - The Devil's Plaything: American Surrealism.
Unseen Cinema
Amateur Cinema