The Arranged Marriage or the Lion

When her elopement with her childhood sweetheart is foiled, a young girl makes for Hollywood in 1923's The Extra Girl. Mabel Normand stars in her final feature film role, a bit old at 30 years to be playing a teenager, but still incredibly charming.

Sue (Normand) practices in the drawing room, pulling faces and poses for her mother (Anna Dodge) and for Dave (Ralph Graves). Sue and Dave even pretend to be lovers and kiss innocently, which is accidentally spotted by Sue's father, who has an idea of marrying her to Aaron Applejohn (Vernon Dent). He forbids Dave from the household thenceforth.

There's a pretty good fight scene between Dave and Aaron that amusingly ends with Aaron accidentally breaking the window of his own store. The choreography is pretty good. I like how Dave walks briskly away after shoving Aaron, trying to look natural but also clearly trying to outpace Aaron. When Aaron catches up, Dave turns around and strides towards his opponent. Aaron recoils but, then, in the blink of an eye, Aaron grabs a fence post and the odds change. For a moment.

Of course, all the action, even in a light-hearted comedy like this, is pretty amazing in most films from the early days of Hollywood when people were routinely doing dangerous things for the camera. The most impressive stunt is performed by Normand herself, though.

Circumstances bring her to Hollywood after her father attempts to force her to marry Aaron. She'd sent a letter in response to an ad for an actress:

But when she arrives she finds herself working in the prop department. One of her duties is caring for a dog who occasionally doubles as a lion, wearing a lion mask. She goes to fetch water for the dog and doesn't know, when she comes back, the dog's been swapped for an actual lion. So Sue thinks nothing of aggressively leading the beast about on a leash.

Now there's a performer with courage and poise. Paul Walker, eat your heart out.

She's also very funny, especially in a screen test scene that goes horribly wrong. I never laughed so hard at someone getting gum stuck on her shoe.

I watched The Extra Girl on Amazon Prime but, being public domain, it's available lots of places, including on YouTube.