Marcel Perez | She's a Prince / 1926

bizarre rituals

by Douglas Messerli

 

Marcel Perez (director) She’s a Prince / 1926

 

Marcel Perez’ She’s a Prince has a little bit of everything regarding the LGBTQ community, it being one of the first films, indeed, to combine what might be perceived as lesbian crossdressing, gay drag, and heterosexuals enacting the roles of pansies—the representation of gays which would become popular just four years later. On top of that, most the males in this film, through a blind belief in the trend-setting dressing habits of the film’s primary figure, Prince Henry Ferdinany (Billy Engle), experiment in wearing girdles and lip stick after they see the man they presume is the Prince appearing to sport such whimsical styles.  

     It all begins back in the Flapper Sorority house of “Fi Delta Pie,” which is about to initiate a new terrified member (Alice Ardell). After a series of absurd rituals, including a room of female Greek statues returning to life and an inexplicable encounter with a group of stylish Harlequin-like she-devils, the new initiate finds herself in male riding attire atop a horse with a piece of paper demanding she visit The Palace Hotel, room 108.

      Also on his way to The Palace Hotel is the stylish man of “no-ability,” Prince Ferdinany, and the lobby is filled with photographers awaiting his arrival. One clumsy and amateur member of the press (Bill Franey) attempts to get right to the heart of things, breaking into the room in which the Prince will soon be inhabiting, 801. He sets up his equipment and waits for Ferdinany’s arrival, only to be tossed out the window with his camera, soon after, by the house detective. This is repeated in various forms throughout the movie so many times that by the end he leaps out the window all by himself.

      In the meantime, the Fi Delta Pie initiate arrives on horseback, convincing the clumsy cameraman that he must be Ferdinany, the other reporters following suit. Alas, poor Alice falls into a pond and is completely covered with mud before she checks in, thus allowing the desk clerk to be convinced that she truly is Ferdinany. He reports that the Prince’s room 801 is ready, the luggage having already been delivered.

      Of course, the amateur cameraman can’t resist following the Prince into his room, only to discover that the Prince wears a girdle. The detective throws him out the window again, but this time the cameraman has news to tell the others; and before anyone can even blink, let alone think about the silly revelation, all the reporters and many male guests are buying up girdles to help trim their figure just as the Prince.

      Meanwhile, the flappers arrive to tell the desk clerk that when a little man in a male riding habit arrives, he’s to go to Room 108, the individual actually being their new female initiate. And when the real Ferdinany finally arrives, much to his surprise no one is interested in his photograph.

      He is sent off to the cheaper quarters, followed by our stubborn cameraman, this time because he’s busy flirting with the man he believes to be a woman, presenting him with flowers, pinching him, and attempting to ingratiate himself with Ferdinany in a manner that the Prince can only perceive as a gay man attempting to pick him up for sex. His reaction isn’t friendly, but that doesn’t stop our intrepid fool.

     The confusion, of course, causes a great number of further situations, among them Ferdinany’s attempt to escape the sorority girls by donning a woman’s dress and heels, the journalists imitating the false Ferdinany’s application of lipstick, and numerous other inevitable shifts of gender. The film, alas, also contains several racist moments, including the very last scene in which with the snap of the camerman’s flash all the faces are turned into what appear to be black.

      Some of the various sexual innuendos, moreover, simply seem gratuitous and are not very funny. But there are enough startling shifts in gender and sexual behavior that no other silent film ever quite matched it. And even when everybody is revealed to be who they really are, some seem still uncertain of their role in all this mass hysteria. Indeed, it is uncertain that Alice, the initiate ever quite comprehends what all has happened, simply seeming happy to be at the center of it.

      French actor Ardell was evidently the long-time mistress of Stan Laurel and acted in several notable films. Perez liked working with her because the two could speak French together, although Perez bibliographer Steve Masa claims she wasn’t funny on screen, but in this film she doesn’t even try to act, her costume defining the reason for her existence.

 

Los Angeles, July 29, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (July 2022).