removed his name from the credits and hid in the projection room during the screening. Although the audience originally expected it to be one of Chaplin's gags, they were impressed with the film and Schenck arranged for it to begin screening at a United Artists theater on Broadway on March 21, 1928. A musical score, based on Rhapsody in Blue and played by a live orchestra (featuring the saxophone), was prepared by Hugo Riesenfeld for the showing. With a presentation usually reserved for bigger-budget films, it played twice nightly with the Gloria Swanson film Sadie Thompson and was billed as "the first of the impressionistic photoplays to be made in America". The film was heavily publicized, with many media reports emphasizing its $97 budget. It received enough notice to be picked up for distribution by FBO Pictures Corporation, which eventually became part of RKO Pictures. The company released A Hollywood Extra to more than 700 theaters in North America and Europe. In North America, it was shown in New York, Hollywood, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Montreal, and Washington, D.C. The film played in Philadelphia with Prem Sanyas (1925), receiving more praise than the main attraction and earning $32 in one week. A Hollywood Extra became one of the first widely-seen American avant-garde films in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Europe (England, France, Germany, and Italy). The French rights for the film and Florey's The Love of Zero (1928) were sold for $390. Although A Hollywood Extra avoided conventional filmmaking, it was embraced by Hollywood and aided Florey, Vorkapić, and Toland's careers; Vorkapić was offered a special-effects position at Paramount Pictures shortly after the film's release. Paramount wanted to hire Florey for the position, but after Josef von Sternberg said that Vorkapić was primarily responsible for A Hollywood Extras special effects they offered him the job instead. Film production designer William Cameron Menzies wanted to work with Florey after seeing A Hollywood Extra, so they collaborated on The Love of Zero; Florey directed, and Menzies designed the sets. Reception The film was well-received by contemporary and present-day critics. According to one reviewer, it ranked in cinema "where Gertrude Stein ranks in poetry"; another called Florey "the Eugene O'Neill of the cinema". A 1929 edition of Movie Makers, the official publication of the Amateur Cinema League, called it a triumph of amateur experimentation and an imaginative use of limited resources. In a