Victor Potel (Actor)

Reviews of Victor Potel Movies

Looking for reviews of Victor Potel movies? Cinafilm has a total of 1,179 reviews across 32 movies.

Movies starring Victor Potel have generally received positive reviews and hold an average score of 63%.

Sullivan's Travels - released in 1941 - is Victor Potel's highest rated movie, with a score of 80% based on 373 reviews.

The lowest rated film from Victor Potel is Frontier Days - released in 1934 - with a score of 43% based on 1 reviews.

Actor Biography

Victor Potel (October 12, 1889 – March 8, 1947) was an American film character actor who began in the silent era and appeared in over 430 films in his 38-year career.

Victor Potel was born in Lafayette, Indiana in 1889, and his acting career goes back almost to the beginning of the commercial film industry in the United States. He made his first silent film in 1910, a comedy short filmed in Chicago by Essanay Film Manufacturing Company called A Dog on Business. Potel continued to make films for Essanay, appearing in dozens of films every year, including most of the Broncho Billy series, and played a character called "Slippery Slim" in 80 movies. He also appeared in Universal Pictures' "Snakeville" series.

Potel's first talking picture was Melody of Love, starring Walter Pidgeon, made for Universal in 1928. and in the sound era he continued to work continuously and constantly, playing small parts and sometimes uncredited bit parts, all primarily comic roles due to his height (6 ft 1 in or 1.85 m) and gawkiness.

In addition to acting, on several occasions Potel also wrote and directed. In the 1920s he directed two silent shorts, The Rubber-Neck in 1924 and Action Craver in 1927, and contributed the story for Saxophobia in 1927. In the following decade, in the sound era, he was the dialogue director for The Big Chance (1933), and wrote the story for Inside Information in 1934). In 1935 he provided continuity and dialogue for Million Dollar Haul and the screenplay for Hot Off the Press. In the 1940s, Potel was part of Preston Sturges' unofficial "stock company" of character actors, appearing in nine films written and directed by Sturges.

Potel continued to work right up until his death on 8 March 1947. The final film he worked on, Relentless finished filming on 28 February of that year.

Victor Potel has acted in films with Jimmy Conlin, William Demarest, Arthur Hoyt and Frank Moran.

Victor Potel has worked with these film directors: Preston Sturges, Edgar G. Ulmer, Lewis Milestone and Robert Z. Leonard.