Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1928)

Ham Among the Yeggs Lucien Prival Lived a Gangster's Life In Order To Be Able To Portray It By Murray Irwin I If you don't believe that Lucien is blase, look at him here, in spite of the presence of an artist's model, having to hover over a charcoal stove T'S not so difficult to be a discoverer. After all, Chris, or Americus, or Eric the Red, or whoever it was that did the job of discovering America, couldn't very well miss it. The boys were simply out for a boatride and got to sailing along, when all of a sudden some one said : "There's America!" And sure enough, it was. Take Balboa, if that was <the gentleman's name. What a time he'd have had not bumping into the Pacific. And Hendrik Hudson. My goodness, why should he sail up Coney Island creek or the fragrant Gowanus when the Hudson was right there handy ? I ask you. If you saw a flock, herd, bevy or gathering of goats surrounding a slim gazelle, or a stately elk (the kind with teeth in mouth instead of on watch-charm), you wouldn't get high-hat because you knew the deer wasn't a nanny, would you? All of which leads up to this: it's a bit childish for a lot of these fellows to claim superior perspicacity because they discover a real actor mixed up with the main product of John W. Meatpacker and Company. Any child would know that Clara Bow is a darb — Lina Basquette a natural — Sue Carol quite the cat's — Alice White a wow. At least, any child who wouldn't might just as well look forward to spending an uneventful middle life among the feeble-minded. Which brings us to Lucien Prival. Not that Lucien is feeble-minded. What I mean is that he is so tattooed with film genius that they just couldn't rniss him. Right now Lucien is atop the world. One of those most desirable contracts. You'll see him in United Artists photoplays. But I knew him when. Here's how it was. I was editing a picture. It was a bad picture. The job of an editor, the world over, is to cut out the bad and leave in the good. When I got through with this one, there was nothing left but Lucien Prival. Of course, I had to go and splice in a few close-ups of the stars and a couple of love sequences. But the one and only thing worth-while in that drama of the underworld was the villainous-looking gangman whom I came to know as Lucien Prival. He didn't even have screen credit. He didn't need it. Except for him there was no picture. I remember I christened the character "The Portuguee." Spanish, producer what a I thought that was what it looked like. But finally Lucien emerged as because the didn't know Portuguee might be. or was, or is. Later I worked on another opery, and there again was "The Portuguee," slick, slim and sinister, in a foreign uniform with rape and ruin staring from his monocled eye. Again he stole the picture. The boy was another von Stroheim. You couldn't miss him. His portrayal was brilliant and colorful as a many-sided prism scintillating in the clear, bright rays of California sunlight. It was Xew York. I didn't know his name. He lived a dozen blocks from me. But I met him first in Hollywood. On the boulevard. To coin a phrase, he was the glass of fashion and the mold of form. Totally in character. The character of the Stroheimesque figure of the war drama. The monocle flashed. The head was closely cropped. The erect, alert figure was tight-girt in well-tailored clothes. He wore spats and a cane. And the women turned to look. The air of prosperity bespoke a longterm contract. I was right. I was a discoverer. Only I wouldn't cash in on him. United Artists would. Prival is a New Yorker born — but not br'ed. He is of French-German parentage. Apparently, the German part predominates. For when he was a kid of twelve they sent him to the Fatherland to be educated. He is quite Continental in manner. But not in speech. He was in Berlin when the war broke out. And when America entered it. He witnessed the departure of many trig youngsters such as he portrays so well. And saw them come back — in pieces. He heard the hochs echo through the leafy lengths of Unter den Linden. And later the rat-tat-tat of machine-guns in the hands of the revolutionists. He remembers the day when the news of the mutiny at Kiel capped the dynamite of unrest which came when there was no bread. He recalls the food bootleggers, who risked instant death under martial law to reap the rewards of profiteering in the very necessities of life. Spent bullets dropped at his feet, or mushroomed against the wall behind him, as he scurried to the theater for the evening's performance, or to the great German film studios beyond the city. For, yes, Prival had drifted quite naturally to the stage and to pictures. (Continued on page 77) 56