James Hall Movies

This drama is a compilation of stories occurring in the Empire State Building with the focus on topics such as bank failures, love scenes and odd clerks. ~ All Movie Guide

Sporting Chance is a prime example of how once-prominent silent screen personalities ended up grasping at straws on Poverty Row. The story is built around a championship steeplechase, on which the futures of jockey Terry Nolan (Buster Collier), his sweetheart Mary Bascombe (Claudia Dell) and his romantic rival Phillip Lawrence Jr. (James Hall) are hinged. Reportedly, this film represented the first time that a steeplechase was specially staged for the cameras, though this fact took second place in the ads to the film's theme song, Old Playmates, which is sung twice too often by Claudia Dell. Only former "Our Gang" member Eugene Jackson, cast as a stablehand, seems comfortable around his equestrian co-stars. Sporting Chance was written by King Baggott, who in better times had been an important actor/director/producer but who was largely limited to bit parts in the talkie era. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

George Morris (James Hall) is madly in love with his wife Helen (Irene Delroy), but rakish bachelor Paul Wilcox (Lew Cody) and glamorous seductress Joan Whitley (Natalie Morehead) get in the way. After a series of petty squabbles, George links up with Joan, while Helen walks off with Paul. The divorced couple tries to maintain a civilized relationship, but they can't hide the pain. George and Helen eventually patch things up, but not before a series of all-too-well domestic confrontations. Lew Cody provides the film's lighter moments, never talking when drinking will do. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, the owner of a railroad gives his lazy son the boot. The young fellow, wanting to redeem himself, uses an alias and begins working at his father's railroad yard. When an escaped convict frees a freight car and sends it careening wildly down the tracks, the young man jumps the crook and then manages to stop the runaway car. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Maybe It's Love is one of the many college football musicals which bred like minks in the early talkie era. A very young Joan Bennett tops the cast as Nan Sheffield, the daughter of a college president (George Irving). The nominal leading man is Tommy Nelson (James Hall), the black-sheep son of a wealthy alumnus (Anders Randolph). Though Nelson is an ace football player, President Sheffield refuses to enroll the boy because of his bad reputation, whereupon Tommy's father withdraws his financial backing and bars his son from ever setting foot on Sheffield's campus. Falling in love with Nan, Tommy signs up with the college under an assumed name, giving up his wastrel ways to lead the football team to victory. Joe E. Brown steals the show as Speed Hanson, a goofy gridiron star who emits a loud and long yell whenever scoring a touchdown (this was, in fact, the first film in which Brown's famous "Yeeeeowww" was heard -- but certainly not the last). The remaining footballers are played by the members of the real-life 1929 All-American team. Incidentally, screenwriter "Mark Canfield" was actually a pseudonymous Darryl F. Zanuck. To avoid confusion with a later, unrelated film of the same title, Maybe It's Love was rechristened Eleven Men and a Girl for television showings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

No one was surprised in 1929 that aviation mogul Howard R. Hughes would produce a paean to World War I flying aces like Hell's Angels. Given Hughes' comparative inexperience as a moviemaker, however, everyone was taken slightly aback that the finished film was as good as it was. The very American Ben Lyon and James Hall play (respectively) Monte and Roy Rutledge, a couple of British brothers who drop out of Oxford to join the British Royal Flying Corps. Several early scenes establish Lyon and Hall's romantic rivalry over two-timing socialite Helen (Jean Harlow). While flying a dangerous bombing mission over Germany, the brothers are shot down. The commandant (Lucien Prival), who'd earlier been cuckolded by one of the brothers, savors his opportunity for revenge. He offers the boys their freedom if they'll reveal the time of the next British attack; if they don't cooperate, they face unspeakable consequences. Roy, driven mad by his combat experiences, is about to tell all when he is shot and killed by Monte. The latter is himself condemned to a firing squad by the disgruntled commandant -- who, it is implied, will soon meet his own doom at the hands of the British bombers. Nobody really cares about this hoary old plot, however; Hell's Angels culls most of its strength from its crackerjack aerial sequences. The highlight is a Zeppelin raid over London, one of the most hauntingly effective sequences ever put on film. From the first ghost-like appearance of the Zeppelin breaking through the clouds, to the self-sacrificing behavior of the German crew members as they jump to their deaths rather than provide "excess weight," this is a scene that lingers in the memory far longer than all that good-of-the-service nonsense in the finale. Also worth noting is the star-making appearance of Jean Harlow. When Hell's Angels was begun as a silent film, Norwegian actress Greta Nissen played the female lead. During the switchover to sound, producer Hughes decided that her accent was at odds with her characterization, so he reshot her scenes with his latest discovery, Harlow. While she appears awkward in some of her scenes, there's no clumsiness whatsoever in her delivery of the classic line about slipping into "something more comfortable." Originally, Marshall Neilan was signed to direct the film, but became so rattled by Howard Hughes' interference that he handed the reins to Hughes himself, who was in turn given an uncredited assist by Luther Reed. Also ignored in the film's credits are the dialogue contributions by future Frankenstein director James Whale, who'd been hired as the film's English-dialect coach. Modern audiences expecting a musty museum piece are generally surprised by Hell's Angels' high entertainment content: they are also startled by the pre-code frankness of the dialogue, with phrases like "The hell with you" bandied about with reckless abandon. In recent years, archivists have restored the film's two-color Technicolor sequence, providing us with our only color glimpses of the radiant Jean Harlow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having long enjoyed a near-legendary status because of its general unavailability, Dangerous Nan McGrew inevitably disappoints when seen today. In her only starring feature role, Helen Kane, the original "Boop-boop-a-doop" girl, stars as an entertainer in a travelling medicine show. While her boss Doc Foster (Victor Moore) peddles his snake oil and picks as many pockets as possible, Nan shows off her skills as a singer and sharpshooter. Through a series of improbable plot twists, Doc's little show becomes a rendezvous for bank robber Muldoon (Frank Morgan), RCMP officer Bob Dawes (James Hall), and all-around dufus Eustace Macy (Stu Erwin). The comedy sequences are strictly from hunger, and the songs aren't much better, but Helen Kane's sheer likability -- and the combined comic expertise of Victor Moore (in his first talkie) and Frank Morgan -- save the film from being a complete waste of time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Clara Bow and her sister Jean Arthur are wisecracking department store employees with ever-roaming eyes for eligible bachelors--particularly those with fat bank accounts. Both girls fall for the same wealthy man (James Hall) but Bow temporarily loses out to Arthur, who is just a tad craftier and a whole lot nastier. On the occasion of a wild costume party, the truth of Arthur's gold-digging duplicity comes out, and true-blue Bow wins the hero. Saturday Night Kid is a remake of the 1926 silent film Love 'Em and Leave 'Em, in which the female leads were played by Evelyn Brent and Louise Brooks. Both films were based on a stage play by George Abbott--which, in turn, was adapted from a verse novel by Townsend Martin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is the first sound film of Vilma "the Hungarian Rhapsody" Banky, a popular romantic star from the silent era. She plays a young Hungarian woman who has just arrived in the US. She is sheltered by her uncle. Soon she becomes a waitress. While at work, she falls in love with a handsome millionaire whom she mistakes for a chauffeur. Soon the two are married. Still not knowing his true financial worth, she attempts to make him buy a taxi and start his own business. He takes the cab money and squanders it on gambling. His good wife then must borrow money from the wealthy lover of his cousin. In the end, the new husband finally tells her the truth and happiness ensues. Though dialog is featured, much of the film is silent. Banky, whose thick Hungarian accent was difficult to understand, retired soon after making this film. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A lesser-known effort from director Josef Von Sternberg, The Case of Lena Smith has been unfairly chastised for all the wrong reasons. It has been branded a financial failure, but in fact its comparatively small box-office take was due to the decision by Paramount Pictures to withdraw several of its late silent releases from distribution and concentrate on talkies. And the casting of Paramount contractee Esther Ralston, who in 1928 was more closely associated with light comedies and romances, has been condemned as a concession to the actress' popularity, when in fact Von Sternberg chose Ralston over Paramount's strenuous objections. The story is set in turn-of-the-century Vienna, where simple peasant girl Lena Smith (Ralston) falls head-over-heels in love with young aristocrat Franz Hofrat (James Hall). The couple are married, despite intense pressure from Hoffrat's blue-blooded family. Ever so slowly and ever so surely, Lena's good nature and unbounded optimism are crushed and shattered by the merciless juggernaut of class consciousness and public opinion, leading unswervingly to a tragic ending. In the original script, Lena Smith was a prostitute, but this was carefully written out to avoid audience animosity against the character (one of the few concessions to popular taste made by Von Sternberg in this instance). Like all of the director's films, The Case of Lena Smith was exquisitely photographed; in fact, there were those who felt that the already gorgeous Esther Ralston never looked better on screen, despite all the suffering endured by her character. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bebe Daniels struck a blow for feminism--for at least 6 reels, that is--in The Fifty-Fifty Girl. It all begins when Kathleen O'Hara (Daniels) and Jim Donahue (James Hall) find themselves joint owners of a gold mine. Each party would like to get rid of the other and take full ownership. Thus, they strike a deal that might serve as an amusing I Love Lucy plot: O'Hara will dig for gold, while Donahue will stay home and do the housework. The first one to pull out of this agreement will forfeit his or her share. This being a 1920s film, it's O'Hara who weakens first when she's attacked by the villains, but by this time Donahue has fallen in love with her for real, so it's "share and share alike" at fadeout time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Love's Greatest Mistake was based on the serialized Liberty Magazine story of the same name. It all begins when Honey McNeill (Josephine Dunn) leaves her home town of Bangor, Maine to visit her married sister Jane (Evelyn Brent) in New York. En route, Honey meets and falls in love with banker William Ogden (Frank Morgan). She confides in Ogden that she expects her visit to Jane to be a dull one, because nothing earth-shattering ever happens in her sister's household. Little does she realize that Jane is presently engaged in an extramarital affair with oily Don Kendall (William Powell). Our hapless heroine gets mixed up in a blackmailing plot hatched by Don, from which she is rescued by Ogde -- who nonetheless steps gallantly aside when a younger, handsomer man (James Hall) comes into Honey's life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide