Hollywood grew from a small rural community into a city of massive movie studios in the early 1920s, as tens of thousands arrived hoping to become part of the entertainment bonanza. Cashing in on the city and industry’s popularity, studios released several films in 1923 focusing on young women attempting to break into the movies. Two survive, “Souls For Sale” and “The Extra Girl,” with “Hollywood” considered lost. Discovered incomplete over 10 years ago and needing restoration, the C.B.C Film Sales Corporation moving picture “Mary of the Movies” helped usher in Columbia Pictures, which officially turns 100 January 10, 2024.

A story that dealt with “a girl’s struggles to break into the inner portals of stardom in the movie Mecca of Hollywood,” similar to the recently released “Souls for Sale,” “Mary of the Movies” took a gentler, lighter touch on making it in the movie town.

C.B.C.’s Jack Cohn hired Lewis Lewyn, co-producer of his “Screen Snapshots” film newsreel series, to adapt and produce the film, based on Frederick Bennett’s 90,000 word novel. While the story focused on a girl from Maryland, the film production would update the girl’s home to Arizona. Filmmakers would also tone down much of the moralizing to make it a more lighthearted tale.

In the film, Mary ventures to Hollywood hoping to break into films and make much needed money for her struggling family. Breaking in is not as easy as she hoped. Though she lands a few extra parts, Mary is forced to become a waitress to survive, after escaping harassment from a masher on set. During her daily life around Hollywood, she runs into performers. Thanks to her strong resemblance to a star, the hopeful young starlet steps in and finds success.

Taking advantage of its setting, the film shot all over Hollywood, showing stars’ palatial mansions, several studios, and restaurants and landmarks around the area. It also parodied the setting of Rudolph Valentino’s desert film “The Sheik,” riding across picturesque dumes trying to outrun a sandstorm. Employing these locations made it a “Screen Snapshots” come to life. Upon completion, C.B.C. sold distribution rights to Film Booking Offices of America.

Critics generally gave good reviews to the film, which many called another exploitation of the industry and its exotic reputation. Some reviewers and even exhibitors panned it. While Film Daily found it not as dramatic as “Souls for Sale,” they called it a pleasant little comedy, relying on its Hollywood touches to really sell it. “…There is a goodly sprinkling of scenes in which many of Hollywood’s brighter lights smile sweetly to the heroine, or sign their autographs in her book, or shake hands obligingly.. As this is the sort of thing that movie fans will go a bit out of their way to see.” Several considered Joseph Farnham’s titles one of its top selling points, along with novel takes on the story much less pretentious than “Souls for Sale.” Some critics thought Marion Mack, fairly new to the screen, a pleasing lass with a light comic touch.

Star cameos drew paying customers to theatres, and the film gave them their money’s worth. 40 name actors/directors appeared in the film. Major directors like Maurice Tourneur, Herbert Brenon and Rex Ingram appeared onscreen, along with stars like J. Warren Kerrigan, Miss Dupont, Richard Dix, Mae Murray, Lottie Pickford, Bryant Washburn, Douglas MacLean, Herbert Rawlinson, Creighton Hale, Anita Stewart, Estelle Taylor, Carmel Myers, Bessie Love, and Zasu Pitts. Screen siren Barbara LaMarr also appeared holding her newly adopted baby.

To help promote the film, F.B.O. teamed with with music publisher T. B. Harms, Inc. to create s popular song to lure audiences to theatres, an early form of synergy. Renowned songwriters Arthur Francis and Lewis Gensler, composers of “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise,” developed a tune called “Mary Mine” inspired by the picture. As reported in Motion Picture News, the “object of the house is to popularize the song on the records, rolls, and sheet music counters before the general release of the film. As a starter 15,000 dance and orchestra orchestrations have been distributed to the theatres and dance halls throughout the country and all the mechanical companies will carry it on their June releases.”

Star Marion Mack also gave interviews to newspapers, but often told young girls not to come to Hollywood attempting to become an extra. She warned them how heartbreaking the struggle often was, especially when 90% or more failed to make it. Mack often mentioned how extra girls spent time “tramping, tramping, tramping” from one studio to another visiting casting offices.

The production did bring Mack some happiness, however. During production, she and producer Lewyn fell in love, marrying a few months after the film’s release. A few years later, Mack would make a more auspicious performance in Buster Keaton’s masterpiece “The General,” before virtually retiring from motion pictures after making only six films in order to stay close to her husband. She began assisting him in scripting and creating film productions, notably the early 1930s newsreels “Voice of Hollywood” and “Hollywood on Parade.”

Not as well reviewed or as successful at the box office as “Hollywood” or “Souls for Sale,” perhaps because producers lacked the money to publicize as much as larger producers Goldwyn and Paramount, “Mary of the Movies” disappeared from theatres to remain mostly forgotten. In 2010, “Mary of the Movies” was one of more than 70 films once considered lost discovered in a New Zealand Film Archive vault. Reports called it “the first surviving film of Columbia Pictures,” though sadly incomplete. United States archives repatriated the films, though at this time, the film does not seem to have been preserved.

Released just eight months before the official creation of what we know as Columbia Pictures, “Mary of the Movies” helped usher in Harry and Jack Cohn’s studio, leading to the creation of entertaining and often powerful films made for much less than major studio product.