Tweet Do records of film extras exist?

I've always wondered, do the studios or film archives have records of all the extras who either worked on a particular film, or on a particular day? I know it must vary by studio and time period, I just wondered if any ever did. I suppose they must be named in payroll records, if those still exist. I was re-watching "Up the River" from 1930 and there were several actors who had small speaking parts for characters who even had names, but they're not listed in the IDMB. I wondered if I were doing detailed research on a film, if I could find this sort of record on it.

I can't answer precisely your question when all the studios are concerned, but I'm sure some of them had these sorts of lists. As a example, I have had many years ago a listing made by Hammer Films for "Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell", and any person appearing in the movie was mentioned, not only his/her name, but also adress, phone number, day(s) of shooting and mention of the role played. So, anyone playing an "inmate" - even a silent one - was mentioned in these lists. Now, for other studios, I don't know...

My recollection is that most US studios sourced their extras via agencies, so presumably the agencies rather than the studios would have retained that information. If you've ever read David Niven's 'Bring On The Empty Horses', there is an interesting account of life as an extra. Like all of Niven's writings, it is to be taken with a grain of salt, but I think the particulars are accurate, particularly the way there were different categories of extras based on whether they had a small speaking part, brought their own clothes, and so forth.

Not an expert, unlike many others here, but I think that during the period when the Hollywood studios produced and released most of their own movies, the studio call sheet would show the performers on a film set, including some if not all of the extras. The 1933 James Cagney movie “Lady Killer” seems to have shown authentic studio production features, from spraying extras with makeup to make them look like Indians to a casting director recruiting new extras for a movie. Central Casting was the name of the large Hollywood employment agency that the studios would hire to get movie extras. Extras were studio contract performers and Central Casting made its money on the employment agency fee it charged the studios.

There is a company in California now that calls itself Central Casting, but it claims it is a not a talent agency but an employer. From a May 19, 2011 news articles: “Bowing to pressure from state and city officials, Central Casting in Burbank, Calif., will stop charging a $25 photo-processing fee to performers applying for background work, effective immediately.” http://www.backstage.com/bso/news-and-f ... 4092.story" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

The photo below of a movie call sheet is a screen capture from “Lady Killer.”

Payroll sheets would show who extras were, but not every cast and crew list would. For many that I've seen, only major cast and crew are included, not extras or assistants, etc. Most studios have long destroyed those payroll records,as well as the cast and crew lists.

I think that perhaps a better record was kept after the extras became unionized. Instead of often being payed a flat daily rate (sometimes in cash at the end of the day) they were paid hourly and with premium pay for doing additional "bits" and penalties for missed lunch breaks and such. Still, it's highly unlikely any studio would have kept those records all these years later. After all, if the studios were willing to destroy film prints to save on storage costs, they wouldn't have thought twice about dumping old payroll records.

I've always wondered, do the studios or film archives have records of all the extras who either worked on a particular film, or on a particular day? I know it must vary by studio and time period....
I wondered if I were doing detailed research on a film, if I could find this sort of record on it.

I think the documents you're asking about are what I have seen called "Casting Bureau Call Sheets" or "Call Bureau Cast Service, Association of Motion Picture Producers, Inc." cast & credit listings.

Does anyone know where these are stored? (What Archive, Library, etc.?)
On a research trip to the Margaret Herring Library in the early 1990's I recall seeing a stack of them just randomly sitting on a book shelf next to rows of books, almost certainly not where they were supposed to be properly kept. I remember many of them were for 1940's Columbia movies, I think some were Blondie titles.
If anyone visits there often or may even work there, can they inform us whether or not The Herrick Library has a collection of these casting lists?

These have been filed under each film title, but they are random and few. Most date from the mid 1940s-1960s, and I can tell you after looking at some of them for research, don't get down to extras, just cast identified by name (some just major cast, some more detailed) and major crew.

Some of MGM's full cast lists of the 50s must be extant somewhere, if IMDb is to be believed. For example, the Singin' In The Rain entry contains every man and his dog, right down to the chorus. The only other IMDb listings for many of the listed actors are as extras in other MGM films of the time.

On a research trip to the Margaret Herring Library...

Thanks for the info.

And of course, I meant "Herrick" in my above post!

Wow, thanks everyone for the great information! Funny, I always thought "Central Casting" was just a fake name used in the movies, like Wile E. Coyote's "Acme Co.". One of the reasons I thought they must exist is because of the listings in the IMDB - I know some character actors are easily recognizable, but I didn't understand how someone could recognize Joe Smith (XVIII) as an extra, etc. I suppose it won't be long before there's facial recognition software that will scan a hundred films and tell you that Person A appears in these 28 of them, and Person B in these 34; then search Google images and present you with his or her high school yearbook photo with a name!

I've always wondered, do the studios or film archives have records of all the extras who either worked on a particular film, or on a particular day? I know it must vary by studio and time period, I just wondered if any ever did. I suppose they must be named in payroll records, if those still exist. I was re-watching "Up the River" from 1930 and there were several actors who had small speaking parts for characters who even had names, but they're not listed in the IDMB. I wondered if I were doing detailed research on a film, if I could find this sort of record on it.

The best record for "deep" film credits are the Call Bureau Cast Sheets, which list most bit and day players. Probably the best collection of these is at the Academy Library, but it is hit and miss. What copies they have are often in the files for the individual films. A lot of this information was included in the AFI Catalog for the 1930s.

It is doubtful that any Central Casting records from this era survive. There may be other sources in some surviving production files, as in the Warner Bros. archive at USC--but this would entail going through daily production reports, and even then they might not include extras, but only go as deep as day players.

There is a little bit about extras in my book "Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood," and Anthony Slide is writing a book about extras, so he may have some answers coming in that; but typically from the 1930s and into at least the 1970s, the way extras got work is they would get on the phone starting about 6:00 AM and start calling Central Casting every five minutes until they either got a job or were told there was nothing today. They's stop calling by 9:00 AM, because shooting would have started for the day. Then they might call again in the late morning to see if any people were required in the afternoon, or to report in and see if they might pick up anything else for the rest of the day. I don't know for sure how they got paid, but I would imagine it would be similar to actors hired for post-produvtion sound "walla" sessions. The actors check in with a contractor, or production person, verify eligibility for employment, and sign in with a start time, and sign out with a finish time, and then the time cards and other information are turned over to whoever is responsible for the payroll--the studio on a studio production, or the accounting office on an independent. So, unless an extra is called back for contiuity purposes (or a favorite of a particular director or producer), they are virtually anonymous to the the production--except of course the "preferred" extras worked all the time and would become more familiar to the prouction folks.

The only film on which I know a complete (or at least as complete as humanly possible) is DeMille's 1956 "Ten Commandments>" The document is in the DeMille collection at BYU. I don't remember the exact page count--but it's probably in the neighborhood of 150 pages of 8.5x14" legal size paper with three columns of names on each page after the principals and bit players with role names are listed.

In her book "The Hollywood Posse," Diana Serra Cary describes the operation of the studio funded Central Casting on pages 132 and 133. She wrote that just before the Depression, about 17,000 people were registered with Central Casting, its high water mark. One part of the operation was the casting switchboard operators making phone calls to potential extras, with the extra having "five full rings" to pick up the receiver. Another part of the operation was extras calling Central Casting at around four in the afternoon to find out if there were jobs available the following day (no calls made on Sunday). Extras would also call early in the morning to find out if there were openings because of cancelations.

The only film on which I know a complete (or at least as complete as humanly possible) is DeMille's 1956 "Ten Commandments>" The document is in the DeMille collection at BYU. I don't remember the exact page count--but it's probably in the neighborhood of 150 pages of 8.5x14" legal size paper with three columns of names on each page after the principals and bit players with role names are listed.

By coincidence, I was reading the catalogue for the next Profiles in History Auction, and came across what sounds like a similarly detailed record of the 1959 Ben Hur. The lot description is as follows:

593. BEN-HUR EXTENSIVE ARCHIVE OF ORIGINAL MGM CASTING MATERIALS (MGM, 1959) A monumental production like the 1959 version of Ben-Hur required a "cast of thousands" (in the old byline of previous Hollywood epics), and this archive of many (many) hundreds of original documents from the files of MGM's casting department proves what a daunting task it must have been to cast those thousands of not just leads and featured roles, but even each and every galley slave and dancing girl. Memos, letters, cables, telexes, etc, show continuity to the degree that most inquiries also retain their responses; a perfect example is the suggestion of Angie Dickinson for an important role, with Sam Zimablist's response, "DICKICSON (sic) LEAST LIKELY EGYPTIAN GIRL(S) IN THE WORLD". Virtually the entire process of casting is covered in this archive, including fees for various actors' services; special arrangements for certain actors for transportation to various worldwide filming locations; huge lists of nearly every known performer in the world, (all of whom were in consideration for this film at one point or another); a note with names, phone numbers, and height of two "little people" actors, including Billy Curtis; mentions of special services from international directors like Vittoria de Sica; and the usual star-power negotiations like Jack Hawkins requiring no less than 2nd billing, with no cast member receiving larger type size on screen or print. A nearly unprecedented and quite possibly all-encompassing panorama of the creation of this important film, from its beginning stages in early 1955 through completion. $2,000 - $3,000

Fascinating stuff, which makes it all the more of a shame that it could end up in some rich guy's bottom drawer rather than an archive where it belongs.

Wow, that sounds fascinating, but the big films would have this much detail, not like the vast majority of the sheets at the Herrick. Most of those are one pagers with names only; the ones listing names and addresses only cover major cast/crew, and many of the top stars have no address listed, or that of a business manager, agent, etc. instead.

Major Sam Harris. Grand Old Man of the Dress Extras!

There's a complete alphabetical list of extras in the original souvenir program for AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS. Among the familiar names are Gertrude Astor, Helen Foster, Minta Durfee, Barry Norton, Major Sam Harris, Buddy Roosevelt, Franklin Farnum, Frank Mills, Leah Baird, Stuart Holmes, Kit Guard, Dan Borzage, Jack Perrin, Sailor Vincent, and of course, Bess Flowers.