Spent his early film career at Universal Pictures, but left in 1937.
Carl Laemmle, Universal's founder, had recently been ousted from
power, and Universal's new bosses had butchered
James Whale's film
The Road Back (1937), on which
Hall had served as production designer. The bosses had caved in to
pressure from the Nazis, who had threatened to have this anti-Nazi
film, based on a German novel, boycotted overseas if its content was
not toned down.