author
Mordaunt Hall
1878–1973
One of the earliest newspaper voices to take movies seriously, this British-born critic helped shape how American audiences read about film. His reviews for The New York Times were known for their lively, conversational style and their feel for entertainment.
1 Audiobook
Some Naval Yarns
by Mordaunt Hall
About the author
Born in Guildford, England, on November 1, 1878, Mordaunt Hall became a journalist, author, and critic whose name is closely tied to the early history of film reviewing. He is best remembered as the first regularly assigned motion picture critic for The New York Times, where he reviewed films from 1924 to 1934.
Before and alongside his film work, Hall had a varied writing career that included reporting, war correspondence, and book writing. That wider journalistic background helped give his criticism a brisk, accessible tone that stood out in the early decades of cinema, when film criticism was still finding its place.
Hall died on July 2, 1973. Reliable sources located for this overview confirmed his career and significance, but I could not confirm a suitable portrait image from the pages inspected, so no profile image is included here.