REGENT THEATRE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 243, 14 October 1931, Page 11

REGENT THEATRE

“6 CYLINDER LOVE.” El Brendel, Fox Films comedian, is big-hearted. Seldom, does a star consent to play a role unless that role is the most prominent one in the picture, but Brendel isn’t like most other stars. When Thornton Freeland was directing “6 Cylinder Love,” which is nowshowing at the Regent, his cast was completed with the exception of one “bit,” the part of a somewhat dumb janito. who comes to the hero’s rescue by buying his car. Brendel was the ideal man for the part, but Freeland hesitated at asking tho Swedish comedian to play it. The impasse, however, was settled by no less a person than W. R. Sheehan, vice-president and general manager of the corporation. Spying Brendel during the lunch hour at the studio cafe, Sheehan called him over. “El, Freeland has a minor part in this picture of his, and he can’t think of anyone but you whe can play it properly. What do you say? You don’t have to do it unless you want to.” “Why not I”, asked Brendob “A role’s a role. What time does ho want me?” As a consequence of the actor’s good nature, the cast of “6 Cylinder Love” was an all-star one, including Spencer Tracy, Sidney Fox, Edward Everett Horton, Una Merkel, William Collier, Sr., Ruth Warren, Lorin Raker and Bert Roach. “Villains,” say t Thornton Freeland, Fox Films’ director of “6 Cylinder Love,” in real life are not the lads with the lop-sided javrs and the handle-bar mustaches who go about hurling glares and saturnine glances. “Real villains are the gladhanding chaps who slap you on the back and tell you what a great fellow you are—as long a., they’re sure you are listening. These latter people are the ones who cause the real damage in life, because they flatter their victims into thinking they are sincere IriemJs, and then plot oehind their backs. The melo-dramatic style of ‘heavy’ never really got anywhere.”