Eddi Arent

Eccentric, self-deprecating comedian Eddi Arent first attracted attention in a series of quirky Edgar Wallace adaptations in the 1960's. For several years, he was Germany's idea of stereotypically blithering English lords (Die seltsame Gräfin (1961), as the aptly named Lord Selwyn Moron), laconic butlers (Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee (1962)) or obtuse, clumsy second-string Scotland Yard photographers (Die toten Augen von London (1961), Front à la Scotland Yard (1962). Otherwise, Arent was patently reliable as droll, vaguely effete sidekicks and comic relief in westerns and adventure films based on the ever-popular writings of Karl May. He is fondly remembered as the mild-mannered, bumbling butterfly collector Castlepool in the 'Winnetou' trilogy, beginning with The Treasure of the Silver Lake (1962). To confound those who had him perpetually typecast, Arent also donned the black garb of villainy as a murderous monk for one of his last Edgar Wallace potboilers, Der unheimliche Mönch (1965). He must have enjoyed this change of character, since he repeated the exercise: first (not too convincingly), playing a human trafficker masquerading as a priest in Der Bucklige von Soho (1966); then, as a knife-throwing killer in the English-German co-production Circus of Fear (1966), which had the great Christopher Lee (for once) relegated to the role of the 'red herring'.