Archibald Williams Hall (December 21, 1908 – April 28, 1978), known as Arch, was an American actor and filmmaker, best known for making a series of

B-movie A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...

s in the early 1960s starring his son,

Arch Hall Jr. Arch Hall Jr. (born December 2, 1943) is an American former actor. Early career Born in Van Nuys, California, Hall began his career as a teen actor and musician, appearing in a number of early 1960s films that were all produced by his fathe ...

Hall used various names throughout his career including Nicholas Merriwether, William Waters, and Archie Hall.

Early life and career

Hall was born in

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

and grew up in

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

as a genuine cowboy. Hall spoke the

Sioux language Sioux is a Siouan language spoken by over 30,000 Sioux in the United States and Canada, making it the fifth most spoken indigenous language in the United States or Canada, behind Navajo, Cree, Inuit languages, and Ojibwe. Regional variation ...

and had a Sioux name, "Waa-toe-gala Oak-Shilla" (translation: Wild Boy). Hall graduated from the

University of South Dakota The University of South Dakota (USD) is a public research university in Vermillion, South Dakota. Established by the Dakota Territory legislature in 1862, 27 years before the establishment of the state of South Dakota, USD is the flagship univ ...

, wrote for radio, interviewing elderly Native Americans on

KOTA Kota or KOTA may refer to: People and languages *Kōta (given name), a masculine Japanese given name *Kota Brahmin, a sub-caste of Brahmins in Karnataka *Kota people (India), a tribe in the Nilgiri hills of Tamil Nadu, South India **Kota language ...

, and was a pilot in the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

. Hall's experience in the

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ar ...

was satirized in ''

The Last Time I Saw Archie ''The Last Time I Saw Archie'' is a 1961 comedy film set in the waning days of World War II. Robert Mitchum stars as Arch Hall Sr., a lazy, scheming American in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, an aviation school for pilots too old to fly ai ...

'', a 1961 film by Bill Bowers which starred

Jack Webb John Randolph Webb (April 2, 1920 – December 23, 1982) was an American actor, television producer, director, and screenwriter, who is most famous for his role as Sgt. Joe Friday in the ''Dragnet'' franchise, which he created. He was a ...

Robert Mitchum Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor. He rose to prominence with an Academy Award nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actor for ''The Story of G.I. Jo ...

, and

France Nuyen France Nuyen (born France Nguyễn Vân Nga on 31 July 1939) is a French actress, model, and psychological counsellor. Early life Nguyen was born in Marseille. Her mother was French, and her father was widely reported to be Vietnamese, althoug ...

. The film was loosely based on Hall's experience in the army after being declared to be too old to fly fighters, but too inexperienced to fly bombers, leaving his only option to fly troop transport gliders. Hall then worked as a

stuntman A stunt performer, often called a stuntman or stuntwoman and occasionally stuntperson or stunt-person, is a trained professional who performs daring acts, often as a career. Stunt performers usually appear in films or on television, as opposed ...

in Hollywood in the 1930s, a job which expanded into small acting roles in various films, usually

Westerns The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...

. Hall formed his own movie studio, Fairway Productions, in

Burbank, California Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, wh ...

. In the early 1960s, Fairway Productions made a series of B-films targeted towards the

drive-in A drive-in is a facility (such as a restaurant or movie theater) where one can drive in with an automobile for service. At a drive-in restaurant, for example, customers park their vehicles and are usually served by staff who walk or rollersk ...

market, and were later hailed as some of the

worst films ever made The films listed below have been cited by a variety of notable critics in varying media sources as being among the worst films ever made. Examples of such sources include Metacritic, Roger Ebert's list of most-hated films, ''The Golden Turkey ...

. They starred himself, his son Arch Jr., and his wife Addalyn, who would appear as a background extra or character actor. The sound was handled by Arch Jr. and his friend from high school,

Alan O'Day Alan Earle O'Day (October 3, 1940 – May 17, 2013) was an American singer-songwriter, best known for writing and singing " Undercover Angel," a million-selling Gold-certified American No. 1 hit in 1977. He also wrote songs for many other notab ...

, who later rose to notoriety as a writer of hit pop songs in the 1970s.

Personal life

Hall married Addalyn Faye Pollitt (born June 5, 1906) who worked with Hall as a staff writer in Hall's radio days. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Addalyn was a Navy Inspector at

Lockheed Lockheed (originally spelled Loughead) may refer to: Brands and enterprises * Lockheed Corporation, a former American aircraft manufacturer * Lockheed Martin, formed in 1995 by the merger of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta ** Lockheed Mar ...

Aircraft. They had one child,

, born in 1943.

Death

Hall died of a heart attack on April 28, 1978, in Los Angeles, and was buried with honors in a

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (; Dakota language, Dakota: Help:IPA, /otʃʰeːtʰi ʃakoːwĩ/) are groups of Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribes and First Nations in Canada, First Nations peoples in North America. The ...

funeral in

Philip, South Dakota Philip is a town in and the county seat of rural Haakon County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 759 at the 2020 census. History Philip was laid out in 1907 when the Chicago and North Western Railway was extended to that point. ...

. The service was presided over by the Lakota Sioux spiritual leader

Frank Fools Crow Frank Fools Crow (circa 1890 – 1989) was an Oglala Lakota civic and religious leader. 'Grandfather', or 'Grandpa Frank' as he was often called, was a nephew of Black Elk who worked to preserve Lakota traditions, including the Sun Dance and yuwi ...

. Hall's life and times are extensively discussed in the 51-page interview with Arch Hall Jr. that appears in the 2005 book ''Earth vs. the Sci-Fi Filmmakers'', by Tom Weaver, which was published by McFarland & Co. in North Carolina.

Filmography

Sources

''Earth vs. the Sci-Fi Filmmakers'', a book by Tom Weaver, published by McFarland & Co. in North Carolina.

References

Arch Hall Sr. biography & filmography

Behind the Scenes: It Stars With a Cowboy

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Arch Sr. 1908 births 1978 deaths American male film actors Film producers from California Film directors from Missouri American male screenwriters Male actors from St. Louis Male actors from Los Angeles United States Army Air Forces officers University of South Dakota alumni Male Western (genre) film actors United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II 20th-century American male actors 20th-century American businesspeople Screenwriters from Missouri Screenwriters from California 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American screenwriters