Hal Mohr was born Harold Leon Mohr in San Francisco in 1894. He was fascinated by films he saw in vaudeville houses in his youth and was determined to learn how motion pictures were made. In his second year of high school, he converted a projector into a working film camera and filmed regional events. He was subsequently threatened with a lawsuit by the Motion Picture Patents Company, prompting him to destroy the camera. He then dropped out of high school and worked for portrait photographer Otto Boyer to continue learning about printing and developing film. Around this time, he also had a job, ironically enough, inspecting film for General Film Company. Through this work he became acquainted with Sol Lesser, E.M. Asher, and Sid Grauman, and the four men established an independent motion picture company called Golden Gate News Reel circa 1911. One of the company’s films was THE BARBARY COAST (1913), a documentary short shot by Mohr and co-directed by Mohr and Lesser. He also gained experience as editor and one of the cinematographers of the House Peters Western SALOMY JANE (1914), and as editor on the James Keane drama MONEY (1915).

After an unsuccessful excursion to Hollywood to find work, Mohr returned to San Francisco and established the production company Italia America Films. The short-lived company produced, but never released, PAN’S MOUNTAIN (1914), for which Mohr served as writer, director, cinematographer, editor, and producer. Mohr then went to work for Arthur Rice, another Bay-area portrait photographer, and when Rice was hired by Universal in 1915, he managed to secure a job for Mohr at the studio as well. Mohr spent at least a year at Universal, first as a film cutter then as a director of two-reel films. He then filmed THE BIG IDEA (1918), a comedy starring Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels done for Hal Roach’s Rolin Film Company, before leaving for France to serve in the United States army during World War I. He was eventually transferred to the photographic company of the Army Signal Corps where he met several men he would later work with in the film industry, including Alan Crosland. He stayed in France for a year after the Armistice to learn about European film techniques and when he returned to Hollywood in 1919, he was unable to find work. He went north instead, and for a time worked for smaller companies such as the Miles Brothers in San Francisco, shooting documentaries and advertisements, and for American Lifeograph Company in Portland, Oregon, where he worked as an editor.

Mohr eventually returned to Hollywood, where he briefly worked as a cinematographer for various small studios before moving on to more prestigious work with Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, and Universal again. His notable credits from the silent era include THE MONSTER (1925), LITTLE ANNIE ROONEY (1925), SPARROWS (1926), and OLD SAN FRANCISCO (1927). He was also one of many cinematographers who worked on THE WEDDING MARCH (1928) during its lengthy production. Throughout his career, Mohr retained his youthful curiosity regarding how films are made and, working at the time that he did, was able to witness and take part in many of the technological advances of the medium. He served as cinematographer on THE JAZZ SINGER (1927), the first feature-length film to synchronize both music and speech. He helped design a massive camera crane for boom shots in BROADWAY (1929). He was one of the cinematographers on KING OF JAZZ (1930), which employed the two-color Technicolor process. He utilized deep-focus cinematography on BULLETS OR BALLOTS (1936) and THE GREEN PASTURES (1937). His innovative work in creating the fairy-tale atmosphere for A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (1935) was so admired that he earned an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, though the film had not been nominated in that category, making him the only person to have received an Academy Award on write-in votes.

Mohr worked in many genres and his credits include the epic NOAH’S ARK (1928), the horror film THE LAST PERFORMANCE (1929), the comedy-drama STATE FAIR (1933), the adventure film CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935), and the Western DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939). He met his third wife, Evelyn Venable, on the set of the comedy DAVID HARUM (1934). The couple married that same year and had two daughters. He earned his second Academy Award for Best Cinematography for PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1943). The final two decades of Mohr’s career are dominated by television work, though he maintained his presence in film with such titles as THE EXILE (1947), for which he did uncredited work when cinematographer Franz Planer fell ill, RANCHO NOTORIOUS (1952), THE WILD ONE (1953), and UNDERWORLD U.S.A (1961), and he was a photographic consultant on TOPAZ (1969). His television work is extensive and includes numerous episodes of such shows as I MARRIED JOAN, THE DONALD O’CONNOR SHOW, THE BARBARA STANWYCK SHOW, and FATHER OF THE BRIDE. Mohr was the head of the Cinematographers Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for over two decades. He was elected President of the American Society of Cinematographers several times throughout his career, first from 1930 to 1931, then for two terms from 1963 to 1965, and again from 1969 to 1970. Mohr died in 1974.