Movie review - "Deputy Marshall" (1949) **

 Jon Hall didn't make that many Westerns in his career but if you were an action leading man of the 1940s you couldn't really escape sometime in the saddle so here he is in an effort for Robert Lippert. 

The plot is very stock - Hall is a marshall who comes across an old timer with a map that involves a railroad scheme. The old timer is killed and Hall gets involved in fixing it.

The cast has some novelty - Hall's real life wife at the time, singer Frances Langford, plays his love interest here, and she sings a song. Dick Foran, who starred in some B Westerns, is a baddie.  Julie Bishop is second female lead.

William Berke directed. He made a few films with Hall around this time. Berke liked to use close ups, so this plays well on television, and knew how to stage an action film. But it's a clunky, sluggardly film.  I guess it's not a bad story (I couldn't pick the final twist), it's just very familiar.

Movie review - "Sailor's Lady" (1940) **

 A three gals and three guys "fleet's in" movie - the sort that normally has colour and songs but this one has neither. The three guys are Jon Hall, Dana Andrews and Wally Vernon - the gals include Nancy Kelly and Joan Davis. Buster Crabbe, whose career has some similarities with Hall, plays a sailor keen on Kelly.

The pacing is slow and there's an un-fun aspect to it: Dana Andrews hates dames because of a divorce and wants Hall to not marry Kelly (who has adopted a baby without telling Hall first). 

The last act involves the baby on a warship and Hall and Andrews go into the background and it becomes the officers, who play it straight... as if the filmmakers were concerned about getting co operation.

I get the comedy this was going for - cute shenanigans on a ship with a baby - but the film doesn't really do it. The characters all blend in. There's not enough women involved. Subplots feel unresolved.  I didn't like it.

Movie review - "Aloma of the South Seas" (1941) ***

 Jon Hall and Dorothy Lamour were a huge hit together in The Hurricane but she was at Paramount and he was with Goldwyn then Universal so they only made one other film together, this one. It's a cute story, with the duo playing a couple who were betrothed as kids and then reunite as grown ups, after he's been to America.

It hits all the tropes - there's frolicking in lagoons, waterfalls, sarongs, colour, native feasts, volcano, a wedding ceremony. Lamour chuckles about Hall threatening to punch her.

Hall and Lamour are an amiable couple - she was a better actor than Maria Montez, warm and sympathetic. The show is stolen by Philip Reed as Hall's jealous nephew who wants Lamour - in one scene he casually shoots a random to death to scare Lamour. Another scene Reed confronts Hall with a rifle and as Hall approaches the action cuts back to Hall as a kid (Scotty Beckett I think) taunting the Reed character.

Someone called Lynne Overman is the comic relief. Katherine de Mille (Cecil's daughter) is in love with Reed.

Solid melodrama, cast and production values. Not directed with particular verve but it ticks all the boxes.

In her memoirs, Lamour wrote that Hall's nickname was Casanova "because he was known to disappear from the set for a romantic fling with any lovely girl who came along."

Movie review - "Hurricane Island" (1951) **1/2

 I love it how Sam Katzman tried to make his Westerns a little different. I mean, he still has Indians attacking white men, but this one is about Spanish Conquisators in Florida. It was written by David Matthews, who clearly liked to throw in a bit of history... this has a real character, Jose Ponce de Leon (played by Egar Barrier), on a real search, the Fountain of Youth.  (I wonder if "David Matthews" was a pseudonym for Robert E. Kent.)

Jon Hall is a Spanish officer - not entirely well cast, but he ambles upon in his Jon Hall way. The reason they're after the Fountain of Youth is because de Leon has been injured by Indians. The local withdoctor says they need to go to the land where he's wounded - it sounds like this story was an African set tale.

Marie Windsor is a female pirate which is awesome. She goes on board a ship with a lot of other women (hookers). There's cat fights, a wise old Indian woman who ages when she gets away from the Fountain, a hurricane. It's all bonkers mad fun.

Movie review - "China Corsair" (1951) ***

 Not produced by Sam Katzman but it was done at Columbia and is typical of Katzman product - a B adventure picture starring Jon Hall. This has him in Alan Ladd mode, gambling in the "far East" on the backlot (cue yellowface... including Ernest Borgnine as a Chinese).

Second male lead is Ron Randell who must've looked at Hall and gone "why aren't I playing the lead I'm a better actor" but then Randell never had a hit like the Montez films or The Hurricane. 

Lisa Ferraday is the female lead, a Chinese who is engaged to Britisher Randell. She's a complete bad ass - a former pirate with a do gooder uncle who wants to sell some jewels to Randell to make money for the poor or something. Randell double crosses the uncle and kills him. Ferraday goes back to piracy, catches up to Randell and Ferraday's female sidekick (called "Lotus") kills him (half way through the film! Poor Randell). Really Ferraday should have done this but it's still pretty cool.

At this stage Jon Hall hasn't done much in the movie except been a bystander on the boat, but he recognises Ferraday and wants her to pay him money because she was responsible for him losing it at a gambling den. He sort of tags along as a support payer until Ernest Borgnine double crosses Ferraday leading to a shoot out on the high seas.

So it's about modern day pirates, some of whom are female, which is interesting. 

This was a little cracker of a film.

Movie review - "Last of the Redmen" (1947) *** (warning: spoilers)

 Last of the Mohicians had been a big hit for Edward Small but he didn't follow it up. Sam Katzman, who was a slightly cheaper version of Edward Small, decided to have his own crack at the novel, and he would do a bunch of other films set in the French Indian Wars.

This has a bigger budget than later Katzman efforts - it's in colour, has impressive production values (well, at the beginning and end... they avoid any siege scenes at Fort William Henry), and benefits from a strong cast. Jon Hall plays Duncan Heyward, normally a villain (the stuffy Pom), Michael O'Shea is Hawkeye, Evelyn Ankers and Julie Bishop are the girls, Buster Crabbe is Magua, Rick Vallin is Uncas.

O'Shea plays Hawkeye as a scuffy Irishman, which actually works quite well, because it plays up the conflict between him and the stuffy Brits. Hall, who one normally would assume would play Hawkeye, is the Brit soldier and is effective too. Crabbe is really good as the tormented Magua.

There's some annoying kid, the girl's brother, who pretends to be an Indian, plus Uncas the Indian friend of Hawkeye who gets to kill Magua. I liked the scene where Ankers tried to seduce Hall. And it's moving at the end when Hawkeye stands by the grave of Bishop (stabbed to death) and Uncas.

George Sherman directed.

Jon hall Live in Concert from 1940 and 1946

A review from a Dec 1940 night club appearance by Jon hall and his wife. See here

 Frances- Langford makes good easily with her pip pop vocalizing and then brings V ott her :mate, Jon Hall, who gets away With dbing nothing. With an appearance and a frank apology fpr being only an actor ahd ; net a dancer or singer, he’ tries bcth and waves the : baton fpr the .prchestra. He can dp nbne pf ;these: thingis, but this audience: was in. a mood ,tO: forigiye him his trespasses. He. at least tried, and at that probably gaVe thd. femhies a chance to sigh . over ‘ the fbrm and flgui-e they peeked at in some South Seas flickers. 

A review from Oct 1940 is here. 

A review from a 1946 nightclub appearance by Jon Hall and his wife. See here.

Frances Langford & Jon Hall, Al Bernie, Carl Ravazza, Borah Mineivitch’s Harmonica Rascals (9) , Ga«Foster Girls, Paul Ash’s House Orch; “Margie” {20th) , reviewed in VARiETY, Sept. 18; 1946.

Melange aboard the Roxy deck this session leans too heavily to the musi- cal side to be fully satisfying. It has.; a number of strong individual ele- ments, but added up they don’t tally . high in the entertainment column. ,,Not a little of the difficulty is the,, faltering finale piwided by Jon Hall in his appearance with his wife, Frances Langford. Show requires a sock finish to get it off for top re- sults and it doesn’t achieve: it.

Hall and Miss Langford did almost exactly the same routine at the Para- mount in October, 1940, and almost exactly the same thing as was said , about them by Wood in ‘Variety’s New Acts review at that time can, be repeated now.:. “Hall comes on following the singer’s opening num- ber and reveals in numerous ways that he hasn’t had much p.a. experi- ence. He falters in handling lined, forgets titles of tlines, etc. . . .” Re- , view went on to say that “it’s all done in a smooth-voiced sort of bash- ful way which sets him solid with the audience.” Unfortunately, that latter part wasn’t true at the Roxy session caught last week. Despite the fact that it was Hall’s eighth show there, he not only muffed one. line after the other of his patter with Miss Langford, but forgot the; name of the house, the name of the tune they were to sing, and just about everything else that could be for- gotten. Apparently being entirely , unable to adlib or cover himself in any way, result was a squirming,- embarrassed audience that wishea the whole thing was over.

Miss Langford, on the other, hand, is a completely polished performer, whether chattering or singing. Her pipes and figure are both as good as ever. She does a number of tunes . on her own before introing Hall. They do some patter together; then wind up in a duet, which isn’t bad. Mainly required are some writer.s to get them up a presentable routine and then a bit of cramming by Hall to remember it. .