Julius Weiss (1900-85) liked to think of himself as the Fourth Stooge, having been producer and/or director on well over half of their output. He claimed to have heavily influenced and shaped their comedy.
White acted in a couple of films as a teenager, including The Birth of a Nation (1915). He was then a general dogsbody around various studios, ending up as an editor at Educational Pictures, where his brother Jack was producing comedies. White co-directed his first short film in 1924.
Jules White moved to MGM in 1930, where he wrote and directed short comedies, including the Dogville Comedies, satires starring trained dogs. He also co-directed Sidewalks of New York, starring Buster Keaton.
In 1933, White moved on again, this time to Columbia, where he was put in charge of the studio’s short subjects. Over the next couple of decades he produced over 360 pictures, and also acted as director on around 240, as well as contributing to their screenplays. It is claimed that by the 1950s he could put out a new short comedy with a single day’s shooting, largely by cannibalizing from earlier films.
Columbia stopped making shorts in 1957, but White went on to direct a couple of Three Stooges’ feature films.
Shortly before moving to Columbia in 1933, White shot retakes for Broadway to Hollywood, which featured two of the Stooges, More and Curly Howard.
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