British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1244. Photo: Samuel Goldwyn.
British Real Photograph postcard, London, no. FS 121. Photo: Samuel Goldwyn. Publicity still for The Hurricane (John Ford, 1937).
Vintage card. Photo: Universal. Maria Montez and Jon Hall in White Savage (Arthur Lubin, 1943).
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 220. Photo: United Artists. Jon Hall in Kit Carson (George B. Seitz, 1940).
Six Technicolour adventures with Maria Montez
Jon Hall (sometimes John Hall) was born Charles Felix Locher in Fresno, California, in 1915. He was raised in Tahiti by his father, the Swiss-born former world skating champion-turned-actor Felix Locher. According to IMDb, his mother was a Tahitian princess. Jon was a nephew of writer James Norman Hall, the author, along with Charles Nordhoff, of the novel 'Mutiny on the Bounty'. He was also a cousin of cinematographer Conrad L. Hall and of Ben Chapman, who played the creature (when out of the water) in the cult classic, Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold, 1954).
Hall began his career using the name 'Charles Locher'. His first performance was in a local theatre production of 'M'Lord the Duke', replacing Robert Taylor, who had just signed with MGM. His appearance on stage in 'Murder on a Mountain' at the Bliss Hayden Little Theatre in Beverly Hills earned him a contract at Warner Bros. Nothing happened with the Warners contract. He began acting in minor roles. His first film was Women Must Dress (Reginald Barker, 1935) at Monogram Pictures. Hall signed with 20th Century Fox and appeared in Charlie Chan in Shanghai (James Tinling, 1935), featuring Warner Oland. After that, the studio released him from his contract.
Hall had the lead in a low-budget adventure movie, The Lion Man (John P. McCarthy, 1936), based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. He was rejected for the lead of the Flash Gordon serial (1936-1940), and the part eventually went to Buster Crabbe. In 1937, John Hall achieved notable success. He was cast by Samuel Goldwyn opposite another relative newcomer, Dorothy Lamour, in the big budget South Seas tale, The Hurricane (John Ford, 1937), based on a novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Hall starred as the native Terangi, whose wrongful imprisonment is the focus of the lavish and spectacular drama. Hall was tailor-made for the role. He was of half-Tahitian descent, had an appealing torso (he's topless for most of the film), and could swim like a fish. In Haiti, he presumably had been a swimming champion. Hurricane became a big success.
Under contract to Sam Goldwyn, John Hall was now earning a good salary, although it took him a while to find his next project. After two and a half years inactive, he made three films in quick succession. He made Sailor's Lady (Allan Dwan, 1940), a so-so B comedy with Nancy Kelly that was developed by Goldwyn and sold to 20th Century Fox, South of Pago Pago (Alfred E. Green, 1940), a South Seas adventure with Frances Farmer, for producer Edward Small, and the Western Kit Carson (George B. Seitz, 1940), a biographical film of the frontiersman's life. Mike Haberfelner at Search My Trash: "The Western was a genre a man of Hall's slightly exotic good looks just wasn't cut out for, plus he lacked the charisma to properly come off as tough guy." Goldwyn refused to lend him out to Alexander Korda for Thief of Bagdad (Ludwig Berger, a.o., 1940), but eventually Hall was contracted to Universal, where he usually played leads in adventure films.
He is the only actor to have portrayed an Invisible Man more than once in the original Universal series, in Invisible Agent (Edwin L. Marin, 1942) with Ilona Massey and Peter Lorre and The Invisible Man's Revenge (Ford Beebe, 1944). He is also notable for having made six popular Technicolor adventure films with Maria Montez: Arabian Nights (John Rawlins, 1942), White Savage (Arthur Lubin, 1943), Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (Arthur Lubin, 1944), Cobra Woman (Robert Siodmak, 1944), Gypsy Wildcat (Roy William Neil, 1944), and Sudan (John Rawlins, 1945).
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 296. Photo: Samuel Goldwyn.
French postcard by Erpé, no. 626. Photo: Film Samuel Goldwyn.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. 1392. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Jon Hall and Nancy Kelly in Sailor's Lady (Allan Dwan, 1940).
Irish postcard by GFD. Photo: Universal Pictures.
Hysterically awful rubber-suit monster romp
Jon Hall maintained his popularity until the end of the 1940s. Then he moved to television and starred in the series Ramar of the Jungle (1952-1954), which was set in Africa and India. Hall obviously tried to emulate the then-popular Jungle Jim films. Lew Landers was the director, and Wilbur McGaugh was assistant director.It made him big TV hero of boomer kids through original airings and reruns. He competed with George Reeves as Superman for the most popular TV hero of the 1950s. Later, Hall made a pilot for an unsold series, Knight of the South Seas for his own company, Lovina Productions. It was not picked up for series but the pilot was edited into a film, Hell Ship Mutiny (Lee Sholem, Elmo Williams, 1957), with Hall, John Carradine and Peter Lorre. He returned to feature films with the South Seas adveture Forbidden Island (Charles B. Griffith, 1959), made at Columbia. Hall played a skindiver searching for a hidden treasure, but, now in his mid-40's, he was getting a bit old for this sort of role.
In 1965, Jon Hall returned to the big screen. He directed and played the bad guy in the Cult Horror film The Beach Girls and the Monster (Jon Hall, 1965). At AllMovie, Cavett Binion described the it as a "hysterically awful rubber-suit monster romp" with "a certain ugly charm, according to its 'so-bad-it's-good' status". The Official Razzie Movie Guide names it one of "The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made". Hall also shot some additional footage for another Cult Horror film, The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (Michael A. Hoey, 1966), starring Mamie van Doren.
Jon Hall made his final two television appearances on Perry Mason: in 1963 he played Max Randall in The Case of the Festive Felon, and in 1965 he played Lt. Kia in The Case of the Feather Cloak. Apart from the occasional underwater photography on films like the eco-documentary Survival of Spaceship Earth (Dirk Wayne Summers, 1972), he retired from the film industry. Hall was married to singer Frances Langford from 1934 until 1955, and also twice married and divorced actress Raquel Torres. His third wife was a psychiatrist. They married in 1969 and lived in Los Angeles with her two sons and a daughter.
When he was stricken with bladder cancer, Jon Hall's health declined to a point that he found unbearable, and after telling friends that the pain of his illness was overwhelming, he shot himself in the head in North Hollywood in 1979. He was 64. He was interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California, USA, in the Court of Liberty, in the same row as Buster Keaton.
His last public appearance was just a few months before his death, at the premiere of Hurricane (Jan Troell, 1979), the remake of his big break. Jon Hall was also an inventor and highly skilled aviator. He held patents on an underwater camera, 'optivision' lenses, and the design of PT boat hulls for the US Navy. Anf his film legacy? Mike Haberfelner: "To claim that Jon Hall had any lasting effects on film history would be nothing short of an exaggeration, but many of his films as well as his TV-series Ramar of the Jungle can be seen as mirrors of their time and great pieces of nostalgia, and despite or because of all their inconsistencies, their camp style, their budgetary restraints, their narrative shortcomings, they attract new audiences even today."
West German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A. 4239. Photo: United Artists / Constantin Film. Publicity still for South of Pago Pago (Alfred E. Green, 1940).
Vintage postcard by K. Photo: United Artists. Jon Hall and Frances Farmer in South of Pago Pago (Alfred E. Green, 1940).
Dutch postcard. Photo: Paramount.
West German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag. Photo: Columbia Pictures. Publicity still for When the Redskins Rode (Lew Landers, 1951).
Sources: Mike Haberfelner (Search My Trash), Wikipedia (German and English) and IMDb.
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