Judge — June 3, 1922 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Six Cylinder Love" - A Silent Comedy About Consumer Excess This page advertises a silent film comedy about the social problems created by automobile ownership during the early automotive era (likely 1920s). The satire targets the gap between aspiration and financial reality: ordinary people purchase fancy six-cylinder cars they cannot afford, and the vehicles consume their finances ("speeds through the bank roll, the first mortgage"). The humor derives from the characters' predicament: one owner jokes he cannot remove his car from the street because he fears never getting it out of a garage again—implying he'll lose it to repossession. Actors Ernest Truex and Donald Meek play victims caught in this financial trap, eventually finding redemption ("peace of mind and respectability"). The film mocks consumerism and keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality through the specific symbol of the automobile—then a luxury item representing modern aspiration and status anxiety.