The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra

United States

1928

11 Min

Black and White

1.33:1

Silent

Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
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DIR Robert Florey, Slavko Vorkapić

PROD Robert Florey

SCR Robert Florey, Slavko Vorkapić

DP Gregg Toland, Paul Ivano, Slavko Vorkapić

CAST Jules Raucourt, George Voya, Robert Florey, Adriane Marsh

Synopsis

This short experimental film tells the story of a man who comes to Hollywood to become a star, only to fail and be dehumanized (he is identified by the number 9314 written on his forehead), after which he dies and goes on to Heaven where the number is removed. —IMDb

Director

Robert Florey

Robert Florey (14 September 1900, Paris – 16 May 1979, Santa Monica, California) was a French screenwriter, director of short films, and actor who moved to Hollywood in 1921. In 1950, Florey was made a knight in the French Légion d’honneur.

Florey worked as assistant director to Josef von Sternberg and others before making his feature directing debut in 1926. He directed more than 50 movies over the next 23 years, from the first Marx Brothers movie The Cocoanuts (1929), to the Bette Davis melodrama Ex-Lady, to horror movies such as Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) starring Bela Lugosi, the spy film Man from Frisco (1944), the skillful film noir The Crooked Way (1949), and the first Hollywood film about the First Indochina war, Rogues’ Regiment (1948) with Dick Powell and Vincent Price .

Florey made a significant but uncredited contribution to the script of the classic 1931 film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Florey was also originally slated to direct… read more

Robert Florey (14 September 1900, Paris – 16 May 1979, Santa Monica, California) was a French screenwriter, director of short films, and actor who moved to Hollywood in 1921. In 1950, Florey was made a knight in the French Légion d’honneur.

Florey worked as assistant director to Josef von Sternberg and others before making his feature directing debut in 1926. He directed more than 50 movies over the next 23 years, from the first Marx Brothers movie The Cocoanuts (1929), to the Bette Davis melodrama Ex-Lady, to horror movies such as Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) starring Bela Lugosi, the spy film Man from Frisco (1944), the skillful film noir The Crooked Way (1949), and the first Hollywood film about the First Indochina war, Rogues’ Regiment (1948) with Dick Powell and Vincent Price .

Florey made a significant but uncredited contribution to the script of the classic 1931 film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. Florey was also originally slated to direct Frankenstein but was assigned by Universal Pictures to direct Murders in the Rue Morgue instead. Florey, with the help of cinematographer Karl Freund and elaborate sets representing 19th century Paris, made Murders into an American version of German expressionist films such as Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).

For many film historians, Florey’s finest work is in these low-budget programmers and B movies. Florey hit a peak at Paramount in the late 30s with films including Hollywood Boulevard (1936), King of Gamblers (1937), and Dangerous to Know (1938), all distinguished by their fast pace, cynical tone, and striking use of moody, semi-expressionistic camera angles and lighting effects. His thriller, Daughter of Shanghai (1937), starring Anna May Wong (one of three films Florey did with her) was added to the National Film Registry in 2006.

Other notable films include two experimental short films The Life and Death of 9413—a Hollywood Extra (1928) co-directed with Slavko Vorkapich, Skyscraper Symphony (1929), and the horror classic The Beast with Five Fingers (1946). He was also assistant director to Charlie Chaplin on Chaplin’s film Monsieur Verdoux (1947).

Florey was one of the first seasoned feature directors to turn to television in the 1950s, working in the new medium for over a decade and producing shows for The Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Twilight Zone.

He also wrote a number of books, including Pola Negri (1927) and Charlie Chaplin (1927), Hollywood d’hier et d’aujord’hui (1948), La Lanterne magique (1966), and Hollywood annee zero (1972). —wikipedia

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Slavko Vorkapić

Slavko Vorkapić (born name Slavoljub Vorkapić) (English Slavko Vorkapich, originally in Serbian Cyrillic Славко Воркапић) (March 17, 1894 – October 20, 1976), was a Serbian-American film director and editor, former Dean of USC Film School, painter, and a prominent figure of modern cinematography and film art.

Early life

Slavko Vorkapić was born on March 17, 1894, in the small village of Dobrinci near Ruma in Syrmia, Vojvodina (at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia), later Yugoslavia, now Serbia). His father Petar, the town clerk, insisted that young Slavko should be well-educated. After finishing his primary education, he became a student in a well-known regional high-school in the nearby town of Sremska Mitrovica, where he made his first steps in art and drawing. (Mileva Marić-Einstein, the first wife and work associate of Albert Einstein went to the same high school.) He continued his high-school education in Zemun and later… read more

Slavko Vorkapić (born name Slavoljub Vorkapić) (English Slavko Vorkapich, originally in Serbian Cyrillic Славко Воркапић) (March 17, 1894 – October 20, 1976), was a Serbian-American film director and editor, former Dean of USC Film School, painter, and a prominent figure of modern cinematography and film art.

Early life

Slavko Vorkapić was born on March 17, 1894, in the small village of Dobrinci near Ruma in Syrmia, Vojvodina (at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia), later Yugoslavia, now Serbia). His father Petar, the town clerk, insisted that young Slavko should be well-educated. After finishing his primary education, he became a student in a well-known regional high-school in the nearby town of Sremska Mitrovica, where he made his first steps in art and drawing. (Mileva Marić-Einstein, the first wife and work associate of Albert Einstein went to the same high school.) He continued his high-school education in Zemun and later in the famous Art School in Belgrade. With a scholarship received from Matica srpska, Serbia’s highest cultural and scientific institution at the time, Vorkapić went to Budapest, Hungary, where he studied art. At the beginning of World War I he immediately returned to his homeland where, with the country besieged on all sides, he survived the tragic Serbian retreat across Albania in order to reach Allied positions in Greece. From there he sailed to Italy, from where he reached France. He managed to enter Art Academy in Paris but soon after moved to Montparnasse among other Avant-garde artists. He took part in the 1917 and 1919 collective painter exhibits.
Career in the United States

Film work

Slavko Vorkapić’s dream to go to the United States was fulfilled in 1920. For a short time, he lived in New York City. Then, for almost a year, he roamed the country nearly homeless, until his arrival in Hollywood in July 1921. Although he started his film career as a painter and an actor, he became best known as a special effects expert, film artist, film teacher, director, editor and became one of the most respected filmmakers in the period between the two World Wars. Vorkapić made a great number of documentaries and experimental films.

Vorkapić co-directed the experimental short film The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra (1928) with Robert Florey, and Moods of the Sea (1941) and Forest Murmurs (1947) with filmmaker John Hoffman (1904–1980).

He is best known for his montage work (see montage sequence) on Hollywood films such as Viva Villa (1934), David Copperfield (1935), San Francisco (1936), The Good Earth (1937), and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). In October 2005, the DVD collection Unseen Cinema: Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941 was released and included a one-minute montage sequence Vorkapich did for the otherwise lost film Manhattan Cocktail (1928), directed by Dorothy Arzner.

The now-common montage sequence often appeared as notation in Hollywood scripts of the 1930s and 40s as the “vorkapich” because of his mastery of the dynamic visual montage sequence wherein time and space are compressed using a variety of editing techniques and camera moves. Vorkapich used kinetic editing, lap dissolves, tracking shots, creative graphics and optical effects for his stunning montage sequences for such features as Meet John Doe, Maytime, Crime Without Passion, Manhattan Melodrama, and Firefly. He created, shot, and edited these kinesthetic montages for features at MGM, RKO, and Paramount.

His protege, Art Clokey, learned kinescope animation techniques under him and went on to create the Gumby animated series.

He was appointed dean of the USC School of Cinematic Arts of the University of Southern California from 1949-1951.

In 1938 Vorkapich commissioned modern architect Gregory Ain to build a garden house for his Beverly Hills residence. It was a minor landmark in prefabricated architecture. It has since been destroyed.

During the 1950s he was in Yugoslavia and worked as a professor at the Belgrade Film and Theatre Academy. In Yugoslavia in 1955 Vorkapić made his last full-length movie Hanka.

Slavko Vorkapić died of a heart attack in Mijas, Spain, on the estate of his son on October 20, 1976.

Two of his many master drawings, his gift during a visit to Yugoslavia, are kept in the Syrmia Museum in Sremska Mitrovica. Recent reports say that his descendants are ready to fulfill Vorkapić’s last will and testament to donate the same museum with all of his remaining art drawings. —Wikipedia

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