Alexander Hall
1894 - 1968Alexander Hall (January 11, 1894, Boston, Massachusetts – July 30, 1968, San Francisco, California) was an American theatre actor and film director.
Hall acted in the theatre from the age of four through 1914, when he began to work in silent movies. Following his military service in World War I, he returned to Hollywood and pursued a career in film production. He worked as a film editor and assistant director at Paramount Pictures until 1932, when he directed his first feature film, Sinners in the Sun. From 1937 to 1947, he was a contract director at Columbia Pictures, where he earned a reputation for sophisticated comedies. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941).
Hall was married to actress Lola Lane from 1934 to 1936. He was engaged briefly to Lucille Ball, who left him when she met Desi Arnaz. The couple later hired him to direct their 1956 film Forever, Darling.
Hall died of complications from a stroke in San Francisco.
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Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Alexander Hall
Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes
Boxer Joe Pendleton, flying to his next fight, crashes...because a Heavenly Messenger, new on the job, snatched Joe's spirit prematurely from his body. Before the matter can be rectified, Joe's body is cremated; so the celestial Mr. Jordan grants him the use of the body of wealthy Bruce Farnsworth, who's just been murdered by his wife. Joe tries to remake Farnsworth's unworthy life in his own clean-cut image, but then falls in love; and what about that murderous wife?
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Give Us This Night
Alexander Hall
Jan Kiepura, Gladys Swarthout
After being introduced to the world of opera, a fisherman (Jan Kiepura) falls for a woman (Swarthout) whose guardian is a noted composer (Philip Merivale). They met when the fisherman evaded the police by seeking refuge in the village church. While there, they are each captivated by hearing the other singing Mass. The beautiful woman falls in love with the fisherman with the wonderful voice.
Give Us This Night
My Sister Eileen
Alexander Hall
Rosalind Russell, Brian Aherne
Sisters Ruth and Eileen Sherwood move from Ohio to New York in the hopes of building their careers. Ruth wants to get a job as a writer, while Eileen hopes to succeed on the stage. The two end up living in a dismal basement apartment in Greenwich Village, where a parade of odd characters are constantly breezing in and out. The women also meet up with magazine editor Bob Baker, who takes a personal interest in helping both with their career plans.
My Sister Eileen
Little Miss Marker
Alexander Hall
Adolphe Menjou, Dorothy Dell
Big Steve Halloway, gambler and proprietor of New York's Horseshoe Cabaret, is in desperate need of money. He arranges for his fellow bookies, especially Sorrowful Jones, to each pay him $1,000 for his racehorse, Dream Prince, to lose. With all bets being placed at the window, Sorrowful encounters a gambler, having lost $500, wanting to place his bet but unable to come up with $20. Instead, he places his little girl, Marthy Jane, as security, or in bookie's terms a "marker". "Marky", as she comes to be known, winds up under the care of Sorrowful Jones and his lady friend, singer Bangles Carson.
Little Miss Marker
The Pursuit of Happiness
Alexander Hall
Francis Lederer, Joan Bennett
Lederer is a Hessian soldier who defects to the Americans during the Revolutionary War.He falls in love with a Yankee girl, but a thuggish local militiaman jealously makes things hard for him while he's a prisoner of war.
The Pursuit of Happiness
Midnight Club
Alexander Hall, George Somnes
Clive Brook, George Raft
With a sparkling script by Leslie Charteris, creator of "The Saint" - the latest crime wave has Scotland Yard baffled. Commissioner Hope (Sir Guy Standing) sends two of his officers (Billy Bevan and Charles McNaughton) to the Midnight Club to check up on a couple of shady characters - Colin Grant (Clive Brook) and Arthur Bradley (Allan Mowbray) and a girl, Iris Witney (Helen Vinson). There have been a number of jewel robberies around town recently, but, unknown to the police, these three have the perfect alibis!!! They have found "doubles", and while they are out committing the robberies, their doubles spend the night at the club, confusing the two officers who are on their tail.
Midnight Club
Good Girls Go to Paris
Alexander Hall
Melvyn Douglas, Joan Blondell
Jenny Swanson, a waitress on a college campus, is dying to visit Paris. Thanks to English professor Ronald Brooke, she manages to make her dream come true. Besides seeing the sights in the French capital she makes friends with a wealthy family there, the Brands.
Good Girls Go to Paris
Bedtime Story
Alexander Hall
Fredric March, Loretta Young
A Braodway playwright wants to keep on writing plays for his wife to star in, but all she wants is to retire to Connecticut and, following a few 'worlds-apart" discussion of the issue, they get a divorce. The actress marries a banker in a fit of pique only to quickly discover the divorce was not valid. She communicates this information to her not-yet ex-husband and he, to prevent consummation of the invalid marriage rescues her by sending plumbers, waiters, porters, chambermaids, bellhops, desk clerks, exterminators and, finally, a crowd of roistering conventioneers to the suite to ensure no bedtime story would take place there
Bedtime Story
Exclusive
Alexander Hall
Fred MacMurray, Frances Farmer
When Mountain City racketeer Charles Gillette is acquitted, he arrives at the Mountain City World newsroom and vows revenge on the Better Government Committee who put him behind bars. Members of the committee include Colonel Bogardus, owner of the World , Horace Mitchell, a candidate for mayor, and Mr. Franklin, a department store owner. First Gillette buys a rival newspaper, the Sentinel , and offers a pricey editorship to World newsman Ralph Houston, who refuses the offer on principle. That evening, Ralph and his partner, Tod Swain, are greeted at home by a creditor, and Vina Swain, Ralph's fiancée, is furious to find out he turned down Gillette's offer. When she learns Ralph went into debt to put her through college, she warns Gillette of a police raid and pays back Ralph's debt with Gillette's renumeration. When Ralph orders Vina not to work for Gillette, she breaks their engagement.
Exclusive
There's Always a Woman
Alexander Hall
Melvyn Douglas, Joan Blondell
An investigator for the District Attorney's office quits to open his own detective agency. However, business is so bad that he finally decides to give it up and go back to his old job. As his wife is at his office closing up, a wealthy society matron walks in with a case: she wants to know if her husband is having an affair with his ex-girlfriend, who is now married. The wife accepts what looks to be an easy case, figuring than she can then persuade her husband to re-start the agency. However, when the client's husband is found murdered, she decides to investigate the murder herself. Her husband has also been assigned by the D.A. to investigate the murder, and he doesn't know that his wife is also on the case. Complications ensue.
There's Always a Woman
The Amazing Mr. Williams
Alexander Hall
Melvyn Douglas, Joan Blondell
Kenny Williams, a lieutenant on the homicide squad, is engaged to Maxine Carroll, the Mayor's secretary. Or isn't he rather married with his job? For each time he has a date with his longtime fiancée, he is prevented from keeping it by his devotion to duty. Maxine, in desperation, decides to take action and bring Kenny to the altar. Who will win, Maxine's curves or the glorious fight against crime?
The Amazing Mr. Williams
Madame Racketeer
Harry Wagstaff Gribble, Alexander Hall
Alison Skipworth, Richard Bennett
International con artist Martha Hicks a.k.a. Countess von Claudwig is released from another stay in prison and decides to treat her rheumatism with a stay at her estranged husband's hotel at a Wisconsin spa. There undercover, she checks in on the two daughters she abandoned as infants.
Madame Racketeer
