---
name: "Alexander Hall"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/alexander-hall"
roles: ["Editor","Director"]
born: "11 January 1894"
died: "30 July 1968"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 2
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-20T00:25:31.096096+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Alexander Hall

Editor and director. Born 11 January 1894 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Died 30 July 1968.

## Details

- **Work:** Editor, Director
- **Born:** 11 January 1894, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- **Died:** 30 July 1968
- **Active:** 1933–1941
- **Also known as:** Alexander Collins Hall, Alex Hall, Al Hall
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 2: 1 directing, 1 crew
- **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1930s 78 (1), 1940s 77 (1)
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hall_(director), https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1968780, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0355284/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/99667

## Streaming the US now

- **The Roku Channel:** [*Here Comes Mr. Jordan*](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan.md) (77)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Alexander Hall

> A Columbia contract man who made comedy look like tidy work: quick, kind, well cast in the margins and rarely deep at the centre. *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941) is the one to see, and it shows both the gift and the limit.

Death, in an Alexander Hall film, is a clerical matter. In *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941) a boxer is lifted out of his crashing plane a moment too soon by a nervous heavenly messenger, and the rest of the picture is the paperwork: heaven turns out to be a well-run office that has made an error and would like to correct it. Hall shoots this without a trace of awe. The joke is the paperwork, and he trusts it to be funny, which it is.

He came to directing late and from below. He had been a child actor on the stage from the age of four, was in silent films from 1914, and spent the years up to 1932 at Paramount as an editor and assistant director before his first feature, *Sinners in the Sun* (1932). The editing shows. On Mae West's *She Done Him Wrong* (1933) he cuts fast enough that nobody has time to notice the crime plot is in bits, and that is a decision, not a lapse. From 1937 to 1947 he was a contract director at Columbia, where he made the comedies he is remembered for, *My Sister Eileen* (1942) among them, and before that *Little Miss Marker* (1934) with Shirley Temple. He kept working, freelance, until *Forever, Darling* (1956), and those later films are not much remembered.

What he does well is the supporting part and the premise. Given a whimsical idea and a full cast, he keeps everyone moving and gives the character actors room. Claude Rains's Mr. Jordan is the proof: a heavenly functionary so courteous you would hand him your soul, and Hall lets him be quiet in a film that is otherwise brisk. We were moved by him more than the plot asked us to be, because Rains plays kindness as a matter of good manners and Hall never underlines it. The script by Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller, from Harry Segall's play, gives him the material; Hall has the sense not to get in its way.

What he does less well is the middle of the picture. Robert Montgomery's Joe never settles his Brooklyn accent, Evelyn Keyes is given nothing but worry and gratitude, and the romance is a thing the film asserts rather than shows. Hall does not fix any of this. His method is to keep the pace up so that a thin scene is over before it can be examined, and it works often enough that you forgive it, but it means his films are rarely deeper than their premise. The reputation he has, as a reliable technician rather than a director with something of his own to say, seems to us about right.

Start with *Here Comes Mr. Jordan*, at home on a wet afternoon, and stay for Rains. If you like it, *My Sister Eileen* is the next place to look, for Rosalind Russell. Do not expect the later ones to surprise you. Hall did not build his films to surprise; he built them to run on time, and they still do.

## Biography

Alexander Hall was an American film director and editor. He began acting in the theatre as a child and entered silent films as an actor in 1914. After military service in the First World War he returned to Hollywood, where he worked as a film editor and assistant director at Paramount Pictures.

Hall made his directorial debut with *Sinners in the Sun* (1932). From 1937 to 1947 he was a contract director at Columbia Pictures and became known for sophisticated comedies. His best-known film is the fantasy comedy *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. He also directed *Forever, Darling* (1956).

Hall was married to actress Lola Lane from 1934 to 1936.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, britannica.com.*

## On Fi1m (2)

### Directed (1)

- *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), Fi1m 77, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan.md)

### Crew (1) — the average rests on these

- *She Done Him Wrong* (1933), Fi1m 78, Editor — [page](https://film.one/film/she-done-him-wrong.md)

## Complete filmography (72)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Forever, Darling* (1956), Director
- *Let's Do It Again* (1953), Director
- *Because You're Mine* (1952), Director
- *Up Front* (1951), Director
- *Love That Brute* (1950), Director
- *Louisa* (1950), Director
- *The Great Lover* (1949), Director
- *Down to Earth* (1947), Director
- *She Wouldn't Say Yes* (1945), Director
- *Once Upon a Time* (1944), Director
- *The Heavenly Body* (1944), Director
- *My Sister Eileen* (1942), Director
- *They All Kissed the Bride* (1942), Director
- *Bedtime Story* (1941), Director
- *Here Comes Mr. Jordan* (1941), Director — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/here-comes-mr-jordan.md)
- *This Thing Called Love* (1940), Director
- *He Stayed for Breakfast* (1940), Director
- *The Doctor Takes a Wife* (1940), Director
- *The Amazing Mr. Williams* (1939), Director
- *Good Girls Go to Paris* (1939), Director
- *The Lady's from Kentucky* (1939), Director
- *There's That Woman Again* (1938), Director
- *I Am the Law* (1938), Director
- *There's Always a Woman* (1938), Director
- *Exclusive* (1937), Director
- *The Toast of New York* (1937), Assistant Director
- *Yours for the Asking* (1936), Director
- *Give Us This Night* (1936), Director
- *Annapolis Farewell* (1935), Director
- *Goin' to Town* (1935), Director
- *Limehouse Blues* (1934), Director
- *The Pursuit of Happiness* (1934), Director
- *Little Miss Marker* (1934), Director
- *Miss Fane's Baby Is Stolen* (1934), Director
- *Torch Singer* (1933), Director
- *Midnight Club* (1933), Director
- *The Girl in 419* (1933), Director
- *She Done Him Wrong* (1933), Editor — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/film/she-done-him-wrong.md)
- *Madame Racketeer* (1932), Director
- *Sinners in the Sun* (1932), Director
- *The Last Flight* (1931), Editor
- *Woman Hungry* (1931), Editor
- *Kismet* (1930), Editor
- *The Song of the Flame* (1930), Editor
- *Smiling Irish Eyes* (1929), Editor
- *Lilac Time* (1928), Editor
- *Her Wild Oat* (1927), Editor
- *The Far Cry* (1926), Editor
- *The Girl from Montmartre* (1926), Editor
- *The White Monkey* (1925), Assistant Director
- *The Snow Bride* (1923), Assistant Director
- *The Last Call* (1922), Director
- *Unseen Foes* (1922), Director
- *A Game of Graft* (1922), Director
- *The Spirit of Evil* (1922), Director
- *The Great Opium Case* (1921), Director
- *The Crimson Clue* (1921), Director
- *$100,000 Kiss* (1921), Director
- *Missing Millions* (1921), Director
- *The Diamond Trail* (1921), Director
- *The Blackmailer's Bluff* (1921), Director
- *Who's Guilty?* (1921), Director
- *Dodging the Law* (1921), Director
- *Sealed Orders* (1921), Director
- *The Spendthrift* (1921), Director
- *Nick Carter Down East* (1921), Director
- *Birds of Prey* (1921), Director
- *Among the Counterfeiters* (1921), Director
- *The Mysterious Bond Case* (1921), Director
- *A Cry at Midnight* (1921), Director
- *Doing Their Bit* (1918), as Miles O'Dowd
- *The Deemster* (1917), as Davy, Dan's Friend

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated

- 1942: Best Director (nominated), for *Here Comes Mr. Jordan*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/alexander-hall