American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince is a 1978 documentary directed by Martin Scorsese.
American Boy is an extended interview with Steven Prince, who tells a variety of stories that involve his history of drug abuse. Scorsese alternates Prince’s stories with clips of his childhood to illustrate the path his life has taken.
Here’s your one-line synopsis of American Boy: Steven Prince has led a dangerous, fascinating life – much of it while high on heroin.
Prince has worked as a stagehand, gas station attendant and road manager for Neil Diamond. Along the way, he gets into acting – where he’s probably best known for playing Easy Andy, the gun salesman in Scorcese’s Taxi Driver.
The premise of American Boy is simple. Scorsese and a small crew set up at actor George Memmoli’s house and await Prince. Memmoli perfectly sets the expectations by suggesting: “how can you tell a Steven Prince story in two minutes?”
Prince emerges and is wrestled to the ground by the burly Memmoli – then the stories begin. There’s a story about a Silverback Gorilla in an apartment, caricatures of his family and getting a boat captain drunk, before the mood changes as Prince talks about a kid electrocuting himself during a performance.
Scorsese proceeds to ask the first of many questions regarding drugs. Prince recounts the first time he tried crystal meth, as a carpenter injected him. “How much did you take?” “As much as he gave me.” Scorsese and his crew are delighted with Prince’s tales and there’s a sense Prince is feeding off the energy.
A heaviness enters as Prince states that “heroin always interested me.” Prince is wiry with fidgety hands – he speaks with a child-like, Jewish-tinged nasal whine and appears both insecure and dangerous. Speaking about his drug of choice, there’s a depth to his eyes previously unseen.
Prince details the workmanlike nature of being a junkie. As Diamond’s road manager, he never books a flight that lasts longer than four hours – which coincides with his need for a constant fix. He tells another story of sitting through a drug bust – hysterically crying and bursting a blood vessel, which pours from his nose.
Prince’s stories grow darker as he relives working at a gas station and shooting a man to death. The payoff of the story: “I blew him between Ethyl and Regular” lacks the comic punch found before. At this point, Scorsese asks Prince about a recent conversation he had with his father. Prince mumbles a few words, then is prompted twice more by Scorsese to repeat his answer to the question: “are you happy?” Prince again repeats that he is happy. The documentary closes on Prince’s sullen, withdrawn eyes as a Neil Young song about junkies rolls over the credits.
The highlight of Prince’s stories – and something entirely new to me – comes when he details how he had to give an overdosing female a shot of adrenaline. There’s a magic marker involved and a future Tarantino riff was born.
Prince’s energy in its various forms is fascinating. His stories are incredible and he delights in telling him – however, there is a weariness that is inescapable.
It becomes evident that Scorsese has heard these stories before and as a director, is mainly interested in recording them. As Prince is detailing the heavy aspects of killing a man, Scorsese’s eyes dart around the room. When Prince hesitates in responding about his father, Scorsese coaches a more emotional, yet almost scripted response from him.
Scorsese is clearly pulling the strings here. However, it appears that reality and art are blurred. The documentary version of Prince appears chaotic and is painted with sympathetic strokes. The real Prince seemed to serve Scorsese in other ways.
The New Yorker – Steven Prince, An Early Scorcese Star Was “The Guy With the Gun”
Andy is played by Steven Prince, a friend of Scorsese’s whose background included a stint as Neil Diamond’s road manager and years of hard-drug use. In the ensuing years, as Scorsese struggled with personal and professional turmoil while making his troubled musical “New York, New York” and the concert film “The Last Waltz,” Prince would become one of his closest confidants, occupying a space somewhere between personal assistant, emotional-support dog, and chief of security in the director’s increasingly nocturnal and chaotic world.
Prince and Scorsese would part ways professionally and the actor later found himself nearly connected to the famous Wonderland Murders.
American Boy is difficult to fully digest. On the surface, it’s a terrific profile of an amazing storyteller who lived an incomparable life. However, there’s an uncomfortable degree of exploitation occurring once you realize what Scorsese is doing. It’s hard to view American Boy as an off the cuff interview when we know Scorsese’s background with his subject. The final scene either suggests Scorsese is completely manipulating Prince or he wants his audience to know he’s bending the reality of his craft.
The BEST – George Memmoli
Memmoli holds a special place in my movie fan heart. He is cast in three of my top ten favorite movies: He played Philbin, Swan’s henchman manager/drug pusher in Phantom of the Paradise, he opened up the skating rink in Rocky and of course he doesn’t pay mooks in Mean Streets.
The BEST Part 2 – The Green Ceiling
Prince recalls some post-drug lucidity as his permanent heroin nodding prevented him from realizing his kitchen ceiling was painted green.
The WORST – Higher and Higher and Higher
Similar to Scorsese, it’s hard to determine Memmoli’s motivation. It’s obvious Memmoli is friends with Prince but when Scorsese prompts him about an intervention, they joke about death via an endless heroin high. It’s another confusing example of art and reality blending together.
FOX FORCE FIVE RATING – 4/5
There’s nothing artistically exceptional occurring here, yet Scorsese adds enough intrigue about his choices to warrant more discussion. Nonetheless, Prince is a fascinating subject and is representative of a unique, furious time in American cinema and culture. It’s a worth a watch, if only to listen to a great storyteller.
