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Just won this signed photo of "Hally Chester" on eBay last night. The seller couldn't make out the signature and had been listing it for a long time as "HALLY CHRISTE (?) HISPANIC TV or MOVIE ACTORS" (maybe because Hal and Bernard Punsly look like juvenile banditos?).  I recognized the actors but the "buy it now price" was a little beyond my means; fortunately the seller accepted my "make offer" bid of nearly half the price listed, so it's on the way to me now. I was pleased to win it for my collection of serial-related autographs: Hally Chester is in Universal's JUNIOR G-MEN and SEA RAIDERS as one of the Little Tough Guys joining the Dead End Kids in those cliffhanging adventures. It looks like Hal signed "Murph" after his name on the photo, his character name in JUNIOR G-MEN and several of the Little Tough Guy features.

I knew a little about Hal E. Chester's later work as a producer, but was really impressed to look over his entire list of IMDb credits, full of old favorites (BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS! CURSE OF THE DEMON!) and others I'll be looking forward to seeing like the crime pictures Butcher Benton mentioned. I didn't realize until I was looking for more info about him this morning that he had died so recently, so this signed photo seems like a mysterious gift. I talked to Conrad Brooks last night and he had met Chester on a movie set long ago, and knew a good bit about him, including his earliest work as a producer on the JOE PALOOKA B-series.

That Films In Review tribute to Ray Harryhausen linked above is really worth reading, both for its astute assessment of Ray's career, and for recognizing Hal E. Chester's very important contributions to it.