S.J. Perelman Filmography

Occupation:: Screenwriter, Play Author
Biography:: S.J. Perelman is a noted American humorist who penned such books as Dawn Ginsbergh's Revenge (1929). During the early '30s, he collaborated on the scripts for the Marx Brothers' comedies Monkey Business and Horse Feathers. In film, he continued to occasionally help out on screenplays and stories...Read More

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Around the World in 80 Days

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: David Niven, Cantinflas, Robert Newton, Shirley MacLaine, Charles Boyer

Synopsis: Razzle-dazzle showman Michael Todd hocked everything he had to make this spectacular presentation of Jules Verne's 1872 novel Around the World in 80 Days, the second film to be lensed in the wide-screen Todd-AO production. Nearly as fascinating as the finished product are the many in-production Read More

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One Touch of Venus

Crew: From Musical by

Actors: Robert Walker, Ava Gardner, Dick Haymes, Eve Arden, Olga San Juan

Synopsis: The spirit of love is back, and she's working in retail in this bubbly romantic musical comedy. Eddie Hatch (Robert Walker) is a window dresser at a large department store; he's become especially fond of one of his mannequins who looks like the sort of girl he'd like to meet, and one night he Read More

1948
Larceny, Inc.

Crew: Play Author, Screenwriter

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, Jack Carson, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: This parody of gangster flicks centers on an incarcerated gangster who decides to reform after he is released from Sing Sing. He and his cell mate have earned a small fortune in investments and are planning to buy a dog track. Unfortunately, another prisoner eavesdrops and attempts to force the Read More

1942
The Golden Fleecing

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lew Ayres, Rita Johnson, Lloyd Nolan, Virginia Grey, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: Dumb but honest insurance agent Henry Twinkle (Lew Ayres) is in love with Mary Blake (Rita Johnson), the secretary of Henry's boss. To impress Mary, Henry sells a huge policy to wealthy Gus Fender (Lloyd Nolan), who turns out to be a notorious gangster on the lam from the law. If he wants to save Read More

1940
Boy Trouble

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Charlie Ruggles, Mary Boland, Donald O'Connor, Joyce Mathews, John Hartley

Synopsis: It may sound like a teenage-romance comedy, but Boy Trouble is actually a sentimental effort about middle-aged parents. Charlie Ruggles stars as a small town shopkeeper whose wife (Mary Boland) adopts a pair of rambunctious orphan boys (Donald O'Connor, Billy Lee). Ruggles is at first hostile Read More

1939
Ambush

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Gladys Swarthout, Lloyd Nolan, William Frawley, Ernest Truex, Broderick Crawford

Synopsis: Finishing out her Paramount Pictures contract, opera star Gladys Swarthout sings not a single note in the tense little thriller Ambush. After pulling off a bank robbery, a clever gang of thieves squirrels itself away in a rural hideout. Complicating matters is the unexpected arrival of Jane Read More

1939
Florida Special

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jack Oakie, Sally Eilers, Kent Taylor, Frances Drake, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: A Florida-bound train is filled with romance and intrigue in this comedy. Among the passengers is a millionaire bon vivant carrying $1 million in diamonds. He is fully aware that a gang of would-be jewel thieves have followed him and so pretends to be an invalid with an ice bag perpetually stuck Read More

1936
Paris Interlude

Crew: Play Author

Actors: Madge Evans, Robert Young, Una Merkel, Otto Kruger, Ted Healy

Synopsis: In director Edwin L. Marin's film Paris Interlude, a beautiful French woman named Julie Bell (Madge Evans) unexpectedly falls in love with Sam Colt (Otto Kruger, a vulgar American news journalist. Based on (All Good Americans), a play by Laura and .J. Perelman , Sam spends most of his time in Read More

1934
Sitting Pretty

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jack Oakie, Jack Haley, Ginger Rogers, Thelma Todd, Gregory Ratoff

Synopsis: No relation to the later Clifton Webb vehicle of the same name, Sitting Pretty is a dated but likable film about the songwriting racket. Jack Oakie and Jack Haley play a pair of would-be tunesmiths who team up with aspiring dancer Ginger Rogers. Through the kindness of a tippling director (Lew Cody Read More

1933
Hold 'em Jail

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Edna May Oliver, Roscoe Ates, Edgar Kennedy

Synopsis: The most intriguing aspect of the 1932 Bert Wheeler-Robert Woolsey romp Hold 'Em Jail was that it was co-scripted by legendary humorist and frequent Marx Bros. contributor S. J. Perelman. The film bears a slight resemblance to the like-vintage Marx/Perelman collaboration Horse Feathers, in that Read More

1932
Horse Feathers

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Zeppo Marx, Thelma Todd

Synopsis: If ever there was an archetypal Marx Brothers comedy, it was the team's 1932 offering Horse Feathers. Groucho Marx is cast as Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the newest president of Huxley College. As he delivers his introductory speech before the assembled student body ("As I look out among your Read More

1932
Monkey Business

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, Thelma Todd

Synopsis: The first Marx Brothers film to be written directly for the screen (its authors included S. J. Perelman, Arthur Sheekman and Will B. Johnstone), Monkey Business is also the merry Marxes' first Hollywood production. Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo are brilliantly cast as four stowaways on an ocean Read More

1931