In 1925 Weiss released a series of one-reel adaptations of famous literary works, including The Scarlet Letter, Macbeth, A Tale of Two Cities, Vanity Fair, Oliver Twist (as Fagin), and A Christmas Carol (as Scrooge).
The Pollard shorts, although filmed on low budgets, were popular enough to continue into 1929, and they boosted the Weiss Brothers' standing among comedy producers.
The Weiss Brothers' advancing progress of the late 1920s came to a screeching halt with the coming of sound to motion pictures, and the stock market crash of 1929.
The silent Weiss product had been cheap to begin with—much of it photographed outdoors to avoid building sets—and sound would only add to the expense.
[3] Three were completed (including two Snub Pollard comedies, without Loback) when much of the brothers' producing capital was wiped out by Wall Street.
Under the corporate name of Stage and Screen Productions, the brothers announced three promising cliffhangers: Custer's Last Stand (relying heavily on footage from the Weiss Brothers' silent Custer's Last Fight), The Clutching Hand, and The Black Coin.
Their usual choice of director was Harry Fraser, a silent-era veteran who was noted for making his films look more elaborate than their low budgets allowed.
True to the Weiss tradition of cutting costs, half of the action was taken from Fraser's 1927 Artclass silent serial Perils of the Jungle, and the new footage with Ray Corrigan (playing both the leading role and the white gorilla) was filmed in four days on a standing jungle set.
Returning to their story property from the 1934 serial The Clutching Hand, Louis and Adrian Weiss produced the early TV series Craig Kennedy, Criminologist, starring veteran screen actor Donald Woods.
Archivist Kit Parker, after extensive negotiations with the Weiss family, bought the film library in 2004.