Robert F. Hill (April 14, 1886 – March 18, 1966) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

film director, screenwriter, and

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

Career

Bob Hill began his screen career in 1915 at

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

. In those early days, members of film crews were sometimes called upon to do double duty, and young actor Hill also showed a talent for writing and directing. Universal had several popular series of short subjects, and Hill contributed to several. He became an action specialist, working in westerns, outdoor adventures, and serials. Like other established silent-film directors Christy Cabanne,

William Beaudine William Washington Beaudine (January 15, 1892 – March 18, 1970) was an American film actor and director. He was one of Hollywood's most prolific directors, turning out films in remarkable numbers and in a wide variety of genres. Life and car ...

Elmer Clifton Elmer Clifton (March 14, 1890 – October 15, 1949) was an American writer, director and actor from the early silent days. A collaborator of D.W. Griffith, he appeared in ''The Birth of a Nation'' (1915) and '' Intolerance'' (1916) before givi ...

Lambert Hillyer Lambert Harwood Hillyer (July 8, 1893 – July 5, 1969) was an American film director and screenwriter. Biography Lambert Harwood Hillyer was born July 8, 1893, in Tyner, Indiana. His mother was character actress Lydia Knott. A graduate of ...

, and Harry Fraser, Hill was given fewer major assignments in talking pictures. Although Hill began the sound era with Universal, he soon was forced to freelance for independent producers like

Sol Lesser Sol Lesser (February 17, 1890 – September 19, 1980) was an American film producer. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 and was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1961. Biography In 1913, while living in San F ...

, Max and Arthur Alexander, and

Sam Katzman Sam Katzman (July 7, 1901 – August 4, 1973) was an American film producer and director. Katzman produced low-budget genre films, including serials, which had disproportionately high returns for the studios and his financial backers. E ...

. Sometimes the producers' budgets were so very low that Hill was challenged to make his films look presentable. His 1935 serial ''

Queen of the Jungle ''Queen of the Jungle'' is a 1935 independent film serial produced by Herman Wohl and released theatrically by Screen Attractions. Plot David Worth travels into Africa to find his old friend Joan Lawrence, who disappeared in a hot air balloon a ...

'' was largely composed of silent footage filmed in 1922 for '' The Jungle Goddess''; Hill shot new "jungle" scenes on an indoor soundstage to tie the silent material together. Likewise, Hill's 1937 serial ''

Shadow of Chinatown ''Shadow of Chinatown'' is both a 1936 film serial and a feature film edited from the serial made by Sam Katzman's Victory Pictures. Plot A consortium of American businesses are disturbed by the loss of profits due to Chinese businesses located ...

'', starring

Bela Lugosi Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in ''S ...

, suffered from Sam Katzman's typically cheap production mountings, but Hill (under the pseudonym Rock Hawkey) fashioned a serviceable screenplay that kept the various perils within the budget. Hill became one of Katzman's standbys, sometimes directing Olympic athlete and action star

Herman Brix Bruce Bennett (born Harold Herman Brix, also credited Herman Brix; May 19, 1906February 24, 2007) was an American film and television actor who prior to his screen career was a highly successful college athlete in football and in both intercol ...

. Hill's last film for Katzman was ''

East Side Kids The East Side Kids were characters in a series of 22 films released by Monogram Pictures from 1940 through 1945. Many of them were originally part of The Dead End Kids and The Little Tough Guys, and several of them later became members of The ...

'' (1940), launching a popular knockoff of the

Dead End Kids The Dead End Kids were a group of young actors from New York City who appeared in Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play '' Dead End'' in 1935. In 1937, producer Samuel Goldwyn brought all of them to Hollywood and turned the play into a film. They prov ...

. Hill returned to direct major-studio work only once; he co-directed Universal's 1938 serial ''

Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars ''Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars'' is a 1938 Universal Pictures 15–chapter science-fiction movie serial based on the syndicated newspaper comic strip ''Flash Gordon''. It is the second of the three Flash Gordon serials made by Universal between 1 ...

''. Hill often played cameo roles in films he directed -- not out of vanity, but because he was handy if an actor was suddenly needed. In the 1940s Hill gave up the feverish pace of low-budget filmmaking and returned to acting full-time. Now white-haired and bespectacled, he played doctors, ministers, judges, and professional men. He retired from the industry in 1950, and died in 1966 at the age of 79.

Selected filmography

External links

* Canadian expatriate male actors in the United States Film directors from Ontario Canadian male film actors Canadian male silent film actors Film serial crew People from Norfolk County, Ontario 1886 births 1966 deaths Silent film directors Silent film screenwriters 20th-century Canadian male actors 20th-century screenwriters {{Canada-film-director-stub