Felix Adler (screenwriter)

Felix Adler (January 22, 1884 – March 25, 1963) was an American screenwriter whose career spanned over 30 years. He is known for his work with the Three Stooges, including their Men in Black (1934), which received an Academy Award nomination for "Best Short Subject - Comedy".^[1]

Life

Adler was born on January 22, 1884 in Chicago, Illinois. He started out as a vaudeville actor and then became a title writer for Mack Sennett silents in the early 1920s, easing into talkies with three Harold Lloyd features and as a staff writer for the Columbia Pictures Short Subject department, a position he held until its demise in 1957.
While the vast majority of Adler's writing credits were for Sennett and Three Stooges short subjects, Adler co-wrote six features for Laurel and Hardy as well as two for Abbott and Costello. A much-loved resident of Hollywood Hills, he was famously sociable, chatting with neighbors at the Beachwood Village Laundry and giving pocket money to local children. His charming storybook house became a popular stop-off for neighbors on their way to and from the Beachwood Market because he would invariably invite them in for a drink.

Death

Adler died of abdominal cancer at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California on March 25, 1963.

Select Filmography

Welcome Danger (1930)
Feet First (1930)
Movie Crazy (1932)
Men in Black (1934)
Three Little Pigskins (1934)
Our Relations (1936)
Way Out West (1937)
Swiss Miss (1938)
Block-Heads (1938)
You Nazty Spy! (1940)
A Chump at Oxford (1940)
Saps at Sea (1940)
Here Come the Co-Eds (1945)
The Naughty Nineties (1945)
Hold That Lion! (1947)
Malice in the Palace (1949)
Oil's Well That Ends Well (1958)

References

Notes

• As a joke, Adler would sometimes misspell his surname as "Alder" in the credits
• In some Three Stooges shorts, there were many things named after Adler such as a box of soap in Baby Sitters Jitters and a liquor store in Nutty But Nice.
• The last Three Stooges film featuring Adler's writing was Stop, Look and Laugh, a compilation of previously filmed shorts, released in 1960, just three years before he died. The last original Stooge short Adler wrote was 1958's Oil's Well That Ends Well.

Sources

• Felix Adler at the Internet Movie Database
• Men in Black at the Internet Movie Database