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William Wellman   

TSPDT Rating

Director / Producer
1896 - 1975 
Born February 29, Brookline, Massachusetts, USA
Key Production Country: USA 
Key Genres: Drama, Western, Adventure, Action, Combat Films, War, Adventure Drama
Key Collaborators: Cedric Gibbons (Production Designer), Alfred Newman (Composer), Adolphe Menjou (Leading Player), Dore Schary (Producer), Robert Fellows (Producer), Andy Devine (Leading Character Player), Joan Blondell (Leading Character Player), William Mellor (Cinematographer), Archie Stout (Cinematographer), John Dunning (Editor)
Highly Recommended: The Public Enemy (1931)
Recommended: Beggars of Life (1928), A Star is Born (1937), Beau Geste (1939), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), Magic Town (1947), Yellow Sky (1948), Battleground (1949), Track of the Cat (1954)
Worth a Look: Wings (1927), Night Nurse (1931), Heroes for Sale (1933), Wild Boys of the Road (1933), Nothing Sacred (1937), Roxie Hart (1942), The Story of G.I. Joe (1945), Across the Wide Missouri (1951), Westward the Women (1951), The High and the Mighty (1954)
Links: [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Film Reference ] [ Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick ] [ The Wild Man of Hollywood ] [ Film Comment Article ] [ Cinema-Scope Article (2007) ]
Books: [ William A. Wellman (Filmmakers, No 4) ] [ The Man and His Wings: William A. Wellman and the Making of the First Best Picture
DVD's: [ Amazon ] 
1,000 Greatest Films: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
 
The Public Enemy (1931)A Star is Born (1937)Beau Geste (1939)Battleground (1949)
 
     
  "Although William Wellman's name is most often associated with action pictures, gaining him a reputation for working mainly with men, he brought his expertise to bear on a range of genres in the best Hollywood manner. Wellman earned the nickname "Wild Bill" for his impatience with actors, his devil-may-care personality, and his spell as a pilot in World War I." - Ronald Bergan (Film - Eyewitness Companions, 2006)  
     
  "Wellman was an efficient, erratic journeyman, as good as his material. Though praised for his handling of vigorous masculine action in war movies (Wings, The Story of GI Joe), thrillers (The Public Enemy), westerns and outdoor adventures (Beggars of Life, Wild Boys of the Road), he was at his best with dark satire and melodrama, where his cynicism about modern mores enhanced sparkling scripts by Dorothy Parker (A Star is Born), Ben Hecht (Nothing Sacred), and Nunnally Johnson (Roxie Hart)." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)  
     
  "With Wellman, crudity is too often mistaken for sincerity. What is at issue here is not the large number of bad films he has made, but a fundamental deficiency in his direction of good projects. On parallel subjects, he runs a poorer second to good directors than he should...Wellman, like Wyler, Huston, and Zinnemann, is a recessive director, one whose images tend to recede from the foreground to the background in the absence of s strong point of view." - Andrew Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968)  
     
  "Expressing themes of courage, loyalty, and rugged individualism in a stark, semirealist style was the essence of Wellman's career. He lensed classic crime dramas, Westerns, war films, social explorations, and comedies with the same hard, sentimental simplicity." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)  
     
 
 
 
 
 

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Last updated: 28/01/2010 10:35 AM.  Contact Us: bill@theyshootpictures.com.
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