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Mordaunt Hall (1 November 1878 – 2 July 1973)Social Security Death Index. was the first regularly assigned Movie criticism for The New York Times, working from October 1924 to September 1934." Mordaunt Hall, Wrote of Screen", New York Times, July 4, 1973, p. 18.
His writing style was described in his Times obituary as "chatty, irreverent, and not particularly analytical. … The interest of other critics in analyzing cinematographic techniques was not for him."
Hall immigrated to the United States, residing in New York, in 1902Frederick William Mordaunt Hall, petition for naturalization No. 379086, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. and worked as an advance agent for Buffalo Bill's Wild West show from around 1907, by which time he was already referred to as "an old newspaper man.""Personal and Social" (column), The Evening Times, Cumberland, Maryland, Sept. 12, 1907, p. 8. In 1909 the theater impresario Oscar Hammerstein I accused Hall and another reporter of assaulting him outside New York's Knickerbocker Hotel."Hammerstein Calls Reporter 'That Thing'", The Hartford Courant, January 30, 1909, p. 1. The case was suspended when Hammerstein left for Europe."City Brevities," New York Times, May 15, 1909, p. 5. He worked at the New York Press from 1909 to 1914, when he joined the New York Herald.
He married Helen Rowe, an American, in 1909.Passenger list of the S.S. Orotava, Port of New York, Dec. 20, 1909. Passenger list of the S.S. Homeric, Port of New York, 4 May 1922, sheet 6, line 6. Frederick William Mordaunt Hall, petition for naturalization No. 379086, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Passenger list of the S.S. Liberte, Port of Plymouth, England, June 20, 1960. Descendants of Wolphert Gerretse Van Kouwenhoven, Person Page 1894. She died in 1972.Helen Hall, born 3 February 1886, died November 1972. Ancestry.com. Social Security Death Index database. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2008.
Hall was commissioned a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during World War I, and did intelligence work. He wrote about the wartime experiences of others in the book Some Naval Yarns (1917). He returned from service in 1919.Ancestry.com. Border Crossings: From Canada to U.S., 1895-1956 database. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007.
In 1919, Hall returned to England,Passenger list of the Carmania, port of Liverpool, 25 November 1919. Ancestry.com. UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960 database. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2008. where in the early 1920s he wrote movie , with young Alfred Hitchcock designing and lettering them, at the Famous Players–Lasky studio in the London borough of Islington.Donald Spoto, The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock, Da Capo Press, 1999, p. 55. . John Russell Taylor, Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock, Da Capo Press, 1996, p. 39. . The Halls returned to America in 1922,Frederick William Hall, passenger list of the Homeric, port of New York, 4 May 1922. Ancestry.com. New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 database. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2006. and his byline first appeared in the New York Times that year. After retiring from the Times in 1934, he hosted a New York radio program on movies and movie players in 1934–1935, and was a drama critic for the Boston Transcript from 1936 to 1938.Wood Soanes, Curtain Calls (syndicated column), Oct. 16, 1936. Walter Winchell, On Broadway (syndicated column), Sept. 27, 1938. On December 10, 1941, two days after the United States entered World War II, Hall became a U.S. citizen.Ancestry.com. New York Petitions for Naturalization database. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007. He was working for the Columbia Broadcasting System in New York in 1942.Ancestry.com. U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 database. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2007. He later joined the Bell Syndicate as a copy editor, and occasionally wrote articles.E.g., guest writing Ray Tucker's syndicated column "The National Whirligig" on Dec. 2, 1955. He died in New York City at age 94.
His successor as chief film critic of the New York Times was Andre Sennwald.
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