James Hall — You Never Can Tell (1927) 🇺🇸

When a chap succeeds by going contrary to all the advice of well-meaning friends, we have to hand him the cake. If James Hall had done what others told him to do, he would, he admits, still be a back number in the crowd. Instead of that, though a comparative newcomer to the screen, he is already quite well known.

by William H. McKegg

"Always," Jimmie informed me, "I have longed to own a home in California. I know that sounds like a newcomer's speech, but it's true. Whenever I used to mention it to my friends on the stage they would tell me I'd never make enough money to have a place out here, and be able to travel to and from New York, but —" He has, though the home on the hillside is only a recent achievement, and of course this stroke of luck did not come all at once.

While still on the stage, he tried to conquer the movies whenever the troupe he was with came out to the Coast. He came, saw but, unlike Caesar, went back — then came again. Playing at the Biltmore Theater on his last trip West, James tried once more to get into pictures, only to find that the getting in is even harder than the trying.

One test was taken here, another there. A film man, considered an authority, said, "I'd advise you to stay on the stage, my boy. You look good on the screen — oh, yes. quite good — but you don't seem to register." Others, even friends, said similarities. Such discouragement would have caused many an aspirant to scatter ashes and retire to solitude.

But Jimmie fooled them all. He kept up the fight and did succeed in being considered — ominous word — for the leading role with Bebe Daniels in The Campus Flirt.

"What we really want," said those who always know what they want, even when it isn't clear to others, "is a typical American youth. A college chap. Oh, yes" — to crestfallen James — "you're an American, but what we want is a typical —"

Nevertheless, James got the part and, later, the praise, fooling those who said he did not look so very American.

Had his troubles ceased? Attend, all ye!

Little Pola was slightly perturbed. Here she was, with a splendid director, Mauritz Stiller; a good story, "Hotel Imperial;" a brilliant supervisor, in the person of Erich Pommer, but — no suitable leading man. Many had come, proffering their services; tests had been taken, but none had been chosen. The search for a l. m. continued.

"What about James Hall?" some one asked the seekers.

"But he is not in the least foreign-looking. He is too much the typical American youth!" Thus sentence was passed. "We want some one who can look like a Hungarian officer."

Jimmie, remembering he had been born in Dallas, didn't know what to do about it until he grew a small mustache to help along the foreign influence. Still, a few were doubtful. But James fooled them.

For when the hopeful applicant, bedecked in a hussar's uniform, was given a test, he looked more Hungarian than many a native from Budapest! In "Hotel Imperial" his screen work — before then, something of an unknown quantity — was, for a newcomer, who had made only one picture, and a comedy at that, splendidly done.

Previous to our interview, I had seen "Hotel Imperial" in the solitude of one of the Lasky projection rooms. Even without music to aid it, the picture stood on its own feet. And James Hall struck me as one who is going to make a place for himself, if only by the fact that he went through very dramatic scenes without tearing up the scenery.

Besides being a newcomer, James had great odds to face in Pola's picture. Mauritz Stiller, the director, spoke no English. Every one else in the cast spoke either German or some other European language.

When I saw him last he had just finished work in "Stranded in Paris." his third picture for Paramount. In a few days he was leaving for New York to make Love’s Greatest Mistake, his fourth.

What more is there to be told?

To me, it seems that James should never heed what others tell him. For, look you. when they said he was not the type of fellow to attract Hollywood girls, was he not seen often enough with Joan? And to attract Miss Crawford [Joan Crawford] one must, first of all, possess a breezy, winning personality. Which Jimmie has.

"But they are not engaged," the skeptics say, "and he has gone to New York."

Even so. But as Jimmie — and you know him by now — has fooled all other pessimists regarding his future, he possibly will, when he returns to Hollywood, fool them once more!

Whenever James Hall came to Los Angeles in a musical comedy he tried to break into the movies, but always he was rejected — and in spite of that smile!

Photo by: Eugene Robert Richee (1896–1972)

His friends on the stage told him he'd never make enough money to live in Los Angeles, but now look at the rich sportsman on his own doorstep.

Collection: Picture Play Magazine, March 1927