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American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince

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American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince
Promotional poster (with Italianamerican)
Directed byMartin Scorsese
Written by
Produced byBert Lovitt
Starring
CinematographyMichael Chapman
Edited by
  • Amy Jones
  • Bert Lovitt
Distributed byNew Empire Films
Release date
  • October 1978 (October 1978)
Running time
55 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$155,000[1]

American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince is a 1978 documentary directed by Martin Scorsese.[2] Its subject is Scorsese's friend Steven Prince, known for his small role as Easy Andy, the gun salesman in Taxi Driver. Prince is a raconteur who tells stories about various events in his life.

The Neil Young song "Time Fades Away" is featured in the film.[3]

A sequel, American Prince, was released in 2009 and was directed by Tommy Pallotta.

Synopsis

[edit]

Martin Scorsese and a small group of friends gather in a living room in Los Angeles with the charismatic Steven Prince. Over the course of the evening, Scorsese films Prince talking about various events in his life with a mixture of humor and gravitas. Prince recalls stories such as being a former drug addict, a road manager for Neil Diamond, and a traumatic event in which he witnessed a boy die by accidental electrocution. Scorsese intersperses home movies of Prince as a child as he talks about his family.

When talking of his years as a heroin addict, he recalls Neil Diamond offering to help Prince get clean, but he refused. Later, however, Prince goes through recovery and remembers being shocked to learn he had a green ceiling in his home. He never noticed before because his eyelids had always been half-closed as an effect of the heroin.

Prince recalls injecting adrenaline into the heart of a woman who overdosed, with the help of a medical dictionary and a Magic Marker. This story was re-enacted by Quentin Tarantino in his screenplay for Pulp Fiction.

Prince also tells a story about his days working at a gas station, and having to shoot a man he caught stealing tires, after the man pulled out a knife and tried to attack him. This story was retold in the Richard Linklater film Waking Life.

Cast

[edit]
  • Steven Prince as self
  • Julia Cameron as self (uncredited)
  • Mardik Martin as self (uncredited)
  • Kathi McGinnis as self (uncredited)
  • George Memmoli as self (uncredited)
  • Martin Scorsese as self (uncredited)

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "American Boy: A Profile of: Steven Prince (1978)". imdb.com. Retrieved 2006-12-03.
  2. ^ Meneghetti, Mike (2021-03-25). Martin Scorsese's Documentary Histories: Migrations, Movies, Music. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 978-1-5013-3689-8.
  3. ^ Pappademas, Alex (2020-07-07). "Steven Prince, an Early Scorsese Star, "Was the Guy with the Gun"". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
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