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August 28, 2012 (XXV:1) William A. Wellman, WINGS (1927, 144 min)

1929 for Best Picture (Wellman) and Best Effects, Engineering Effects (Roy Pomeroy) 1997 Selected for

Directed by William A. Wellman Based on a story by John Monk Saunders Screenplay by Hope Loring and Louis D. Lighton Produced by B.P. Schulberg (associate producer) and (producer, uncredited) Original Music by J.S. Zamecnik Cinematography by Harry Perry Film Editing by E. Lloyd Sheldon (editor-in-chief) and Lucien Arlette Marchal...Celeste Hubbard ...Mrs. Powell Art Direction by Carl von Haartman...German Officer Costume Design by Travis Banton and Edith Head Gloria Wellman...Peasant Child Conductor (2012 restored score): Peter Boyer William A. Wellman...Doughboy Arranger and orchestrator (2012 restoration): Dominik Hauser

F.M. Andrews.... commander: military pilots William A. Wellman (February 29, S.C. Campbell....supervisor: flying sequences 1896, Brookline, Massachusetts – Sterling Campbell....technical director: flight sequences December 9, 1975, , James A. Healy.... supervisor: flying sequences ) directed 83 films, some of A.M. Jones.... supervisor: ground troop maneuvers which are 1958 Lafayette Escadrille, E.P. Ketchum.... supervisor: trench system reproduction 1958 Darby's Rangers, 1955 Blood F.P. Lahm.... commander: military pilots Alley, 1954 , 1954 The Robert Mortimer.... ordnance supervisor High and the Mighty, 1953 in the Ted Parson.... supervisor: flying sequences Sky, 1952 , 1951 Carl von Haartman.... supervisor: flying sequences , 1951 It's a Big Country, 1951 Across the Wide ...Mary Preston Missouri, 1950 The Next Voice You Charles 'Buddy' Rogers...Jack Powell Hear..., 1949 Battleground, 1948 , 1948 The Iron Curtain, ...David Armstrong 1947 , 1946 , 1945 Story of G.I. Joe, ...Sylvia Lewis 1945 This Man's Navy, 1944 Buffalo Bill, 1943 The Ox-Bow Incident, ...Herman Schwimpf 1942 Thunder Birds [Soldiers of the Air], 1942 Roxie Hart, 1939 The Richard Tucker...Air Commander Light That Failed, 1939 Beau Geste, 1938 , 1937 A ...Cadet White Star Is Born, 1936 The Robin Hood of El Dorado, 1935 The Call of Gunboat Smith...The Sergeant the Wild, 1934 The President Vanishes, 1934 Stingaree, 1934 Viva Henry B. Walthall... David's Father Villa!, 1933 , 1933 , 1932 The Roscoe Karns...Lt. Cameron Conquerors, 1932 !, 1931 Night Nurse, 1931 The Public Julia Swayne Gordon… David's Mother Enemy, 1931 Other Men's Women, 1930 Young Eagles, 1929 The Wellman—WINGS—2

Man I Love, 1928 , 1928 , 1928 The The Sins of Rosanne. Legion of the Condemned, 1927 Wings, 1926 The Cat's Pajamas, 1926 The Boob, 1924 The Vagabond Trail, 1924 Not a Drum Was Clara Bow… Mary Preston Heard, 1923 Cupid's Fireman, 1923 Big Dan, 1923 Second Hand (b. July 29, 1905, Brooklyn, Love, 1923 The Man Who Won, and 1920 The Twins of Suffering New York – September 27, Creek. He won a Best Writing Oscar for A Star is Born (1937). 1965, West Los Angeles, California) appeared in 55 John Monk Saunders (November 22, 1895, Hinckley, Minnesota – films, some of which were 1933 March 11, 1940, Ft. Myers, ) won a best writing, original story Hoop-La, 1932 Call Her Oscar for The Dawn Patrol (1930). Some of his other film credits are Savage, 1931 No Limit, 1930 1938 The Hidden Menace, 1938 A Yank at Oxford, 1936 Conquest of , 1930 Love the Air, 1935 I Found Stella Parish, 1935 West Point of the Air, 1935 Among the Millionaires, 1930 Devil Dogs of the Air, 1933 Ace of Aces, 1933 The Eagle and the , 1929 Hawk, 1931 The Last Flight, 1931 The Finger Points, 1930 The Dangerous Curves, 1929 The Dawn Patrol, 1928 The Docks of New York, 1928 The Legion of the Wild Party, 1928 The Fleet's In, Condemned, and 1927 Wings. 1928 Ladies of the Mob, 1928 Red Hair, 1927 Hula, 1927 B.P. Schulberg (b. Benjamin Percival Schulberg, January 19, 1892, Wings, 1927 Rough House Rosie, 1927 Children of Divorce, 1927 It, Bridgeport, Connecticut – February 25, 1957, Key Biscayne, Florida) 1926 Kid Boots, 1926 Mantrap, 1926 Dancing Mothers, 1926 Two was producer or associate producer for 108 films, some of which Can Play, 1925 My Lady of Whims, 1925 The Ancient Mariner, 1925 were 1943 City Without Men, 1942 Flight Lieutenant, 1942 The The Plastic Age, 1925 Free to Love, 1925 The Primrose Path, 1925 Adventures of Martin Eden, 1941 Bedtime Story, 1937 Blossoms on Kiss Me Again, 1925 , 1925 My Lady's Lips, 1925 The Broadway, 1937 She's No Lady, 1937 The Great Gambini, 1937 Her Lawful Cheater, 1925 The Adventurous Sex, 1925 Capital Husband Lies, 1937 John Meade's Woman, 1937 A Doctor's Diary, Punishment, 1924 Helen's Babies, 1924 Daughters of Pleasure, 1924 1936 Meet Nero Wolfe, 1936 Counterfeit, 1935 Crime and Grit, 1923 Black Oxen, 1923 Maytime, 1923 The Daring Years, 1922 Punishment, 1934 Little Miss Marker, 1934 Thirty Day Princess, Down to in Ships, and 1922 Beyond the Rainbow. 1933 Jennie Gerhardt, 1933 The Crime of the Century, 1932 Million Dollar Legs, 1930 The Return of Dr. , 1929 The Charles 'Buddy' Rogers… Jack Powell (August 13, 1904, Olathe, Virginian, 1928 Abie's Irish Rose, 1928 The Last Command, 1927 Kansas – April 21, 1999, Rancho Mirage, California) appeared in 40 The Rough Riders, 1927 Underworld, 1927 Barbed Wire, 1927 films, including 1957 The Parson and the Outlaw, 1948 An Innocent Fireman, Save My Child, 1927 Wings, 1927 Special Delivery, 1926 Affair, 1942 Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost, 1942 Mexican Spitfire at Man of the Forest, 1926 Old Ironsides, 1926 We're in the Navy Now, Sea, 1941 Mexican Spitfire's Baby, 1938 Let's Make a Night of It, 1925 Parisian Love, 1925 My Lady's Lips, 1925 The Lawful Cheater, 1935 Old Man Rhythm, 1933 Take a Chance, 1932 This Reckless 1925 , 1925 The Boomerang, 1925 The Mansion of Age, 1931 Working Girls, 1931 The Road to Reno, 1930 Heads Up, Aching Hearts, 1925 Capital Punishment, 1924 White Man, and 1921 1930 Young Eagles, 1929 Illusion, 1929 Close Harmony, 1928 Red Get Your Man. Lips, 1928 Varsity, 1928 Abie's Irish Rose, 1927 Get Your Man, 1927 My Best Girl, 1927 Wings, 1926 So's Your Old Man, 1926 More Pay Lucien Hubbard (December 22, 1888, Fort Thomas, Kentucky – - Less Work, and 1926 . December 31, 1971, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California) has 59 producer credits, some of which are 1940 Street of Memories, 1940 Richard Arlen… David Armstrong (b. Sylvanus Richard Van , 1940 The Bride Wore Crutches, 1939 Nick Mattimore, September 1, 1899, St. Paul, Minnesota – March 28, Carter, Master Detective, 1939 6,000 Enemies, 1938 The Texans, 1976, North , Los Angeles, California) has 177 acting 1937 Ebb Tide, 1937 Song of the City, 1937 Under Cover of Night, credits, some of which are 1977 A Whale of a Tale, 1976 Won Ton 1936 Sinner Take All, 1936 The Longest Night, 1936 Speed, 1936 Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood, 1975 The Sky's the Limit, 1968 , 1935 Here Comes the Band, 1935 Public Hero Buckskin, 1967 Fort Utah, 1967 The Road to Nashville, 1967 Red #1, 1935 Shadow of Doubt, 1934 Straight Is the Way, 1934 You Can't Tomahawk, 1966 Waco, 1966 Johnny Reno, 1965 Apache Uprising, Buy Everything, 1927 The Rough Riders, and 1927 Wings. 1965 Black Spurs, 1965 Young Fury, 1964 The Shepherd of the Hills, 1964 The Best Man, 1964 Law of , 1964 Sex and the Harry Perry (May 2, 1888 – February 9, 1985, Woodland Hills, Los College Girl, 1963 The Young and the Brave, 1959-1961 “Lawman”, Angeles, California) was cinematographer for 28 films: 1930 Hell's 1961 “Michael Shayne”, 1961 “Lock Up”, 1959-1961 “Bat Angels, 1927 Now We're in the Air, 1927 Wings, 1925 The Midnight Masterson”, 1960 “Whirlybirds”, 1959 Warlock, 1959 “Wanted: Flyer, 1925 , 1925 Go Straight, 1925 The Dead or Alive”, 1956-1957 “Crossroads”, 1957 “Playhouse 90”, 1956 Mansion of Aching Hearts, 1925 Flattery, 1924 The Breath of The Mountain, 1956 Hidden Guns, 1955 “The Whistler”, 1955 “The Scandal, 1924 The Fighting American, 1923 The Broken Wing, 1923 Show”, 1953 Sabre Jet, 1952 , 1951 April Showers, 1923 The Virginian, 1923 The Girl Who Came Back, Silver City, 1949 Grand Canyon, 1947 Buffalo Bill Rides Again, 1945 1923 Are You a Failure?, 1922 Shadows, 1922 Borderland, 1922 If The Phantom Speaks, 1944 That's My Baby!, 1944 The Lady and the You Believe It, It's So, 1922 The Ordeal, 1922 The Crimson Monster, 1943 , 1943 , 1942 Torpedo Challenge, 1921 A Prince There Was, 1921 Cappy Ricks, 1921 The Boat, 1941 Raiders of the Desert, 1941 Forced Landing, 1941 Power Conquest of Canaan, 1921 White and Unmarried, 1921 The City of Dive, 1941 Mutiny in the Arctic, 1940 Black Diamonds, 1940 Hot Silent Men, 1921 The Faith Healer, 1921 The Easy Road, and 1920 Steel, 1939 Mutiny on the Blackhawk, 1939 Missing Daughters, 1938 Wellman—WINGS—3

Call of the Yukon, 1937 Secret Valley, 1936 The Mine with the Iron Playhouse”, 1942 Reap the Wild Wind, 1941 Life with Henry, 1940 Door, 1935 Helldorado, 1934 Ready for Love, 1934 Come On, Cross-Country Romance, 1940 Queen of the Mob, 1939 Laugh It Off, Marines!, 1933 Alice in Wonderland, 1933 Hell and High Water, 1939 That's Right - You're Wrong, 1939 The Women, 1938 Thanks for 1933 Golden Harvest, 1932 Island of Lost Souls, 1932 Tiger Shark, the Memory, 1938 Maid's Night Out, 1938 Tarzan's Revenge, 1937 1932 Guilty as Hell, 1931 Touchdown, 1931 Caught, 1931 Gun Artists & Models, 1937 Topper, 1936 Dracula's Daughter, 1935 I Smoke, 1931 The Conquering Horde, 1930 The Santa Fe Trail, 1930 Live My Life, 1934 Let's Be Ritzy, 1934 Bombay Mail, 1933 The The Border Legion, 1930 , 1930 The Light of Barbarian, 1932 Night World, 1932 The Man Who Played God, 1931 Stars, 1929 The Virginian, 1929 Dangerous Curves, 1929 Flying High, 1931 The Mystery Train, 1931 Men Call It Love, 1930 The Four Feathers, 1928 Manhattan Cocktail, 1928 Beggars of Life, War Nurse, 1930 Our Blushing Brides, 1930 Let Us Be Gay, 1930 1928 Ladies of the Mob, 1928 Under the Tonto Rim, 1927 The Blood Holiday, 1929 The Racketeer, 1929 , 1929 Girls Ship, 1927 Rolled Stockings, 1927 Wings, 1926 Old Ironsides, 1926 Gone Wild, 1928 Runaway Girls, 1928 Undressed, 1928 Green Grass Behind the Front, and 1925 In the Name of Love. Widows, 1928 Harold Teen, 1928 The Chorus Kid, 1928 The Port of Missing Girls, 1928 The Whip Woman, 1927 One Woman to Another, Jobyna Ralston… Sylvia Lewis (b. Jobyna Lancaster Raulston, 1927 Adam and Evil, 1927 Black Tears, 1927 Wings, 1927 Children November 21, 1899, South Pittsburg, Tennessee – January 22, 1967, of Divorce, 1927 Venus of Venice, 1926 Fools of Fashion, 1926 Don Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California) appeared in 80 films, Juan, 1926 , 1925 Raffles, 1925 Her Market nearly all of them shorts, some of which are 1931 Sheer Luck, 1930 Value, 1924 Another Scandal, 1924 Why Men Leave Home, 1923 Rough Waters, 1929 Some Mother's Boy, 1928 The Power of the Reno, 1922 Sherlock Holmes, 1919 Sadie Love, 1919 The Third Press, 1927 Little Mickey Grogan, 1927 Pretty Clothes, 1927 Wings, Degree, 1918 Virtuous Wives, 1917 Seven Keys to Baldpate, 1917 1927 Special Delivery, 1927 The Kid Brother, 1925 The Freshman, Her Excellency, the Governor, and 1916 The Battle of Hearts. She is 1922 Soak the Sheik (short), 1922 Bone Dry (short), 1922 The best known, however, as a gossip columnist. According to Wikipedia, Landlubber (short), 1921 Humor Risk (short), 1921 The Brown Derby “She had been a small-time actress of stage and screen for years (short), 1920 Ball Bearing, But Hard Running (short), 1919 The before being offered the chance to write a column 'Hedda Hopper's Shimmy Jim (short), 1919 The Sultan of Djazz (short), and 1919 Hollywood' in the Los Angeles Times in 1938. This revealed a gift for Starting Out in Life (short). invective so vicious that it brought physical retaliation from Spencer Tracy and Joseph Cotten, among others, and she also named Gary Cooper… Cadet White (b. Cooper, May 7, 1901, suspected communists in the McCarthy era. Hopper continued to Helena, Montana – May 13, 1961, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, write gossip to the end, her work appearing in countless magazines California) won an honorary Oscar in 196`1 and a best actor Oscar and later on radio.” for High Noon (1952). Some of his other 115 films were 1961 The Naked Edge, 1959 The Wreck of the Mary Deare, 1959 They Came to Cordura, 1959 Alias , 1959 The Hanging Tree, 1958 Man of the West, 1958 Ten North Frederick, 1957 Love in the Afternoon, 1956 Friendly Persuasion, 1955 The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, 1954 Vera Cruz, 1954 Garden of Evil, 1952 Springfield Rifle, 1952 High Noon, 1951 Distant Drums, 1951 It's a Big Country, 1951 You're in the Navy Now, 1950 Dallas, 1950 Bright Leaf, 1949 Task Force, 1949 The Fountainhead, 1947 Unconquered, 1946 Cloak and Dagger, 1945 Trunk, 1945 Along Came Jones, 1944 Brown, 1943 For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1942 , 1941 Sergeant York, 1941 Meet John Doe, 1940 North West Mounted Police, 1940 The Westerner, 1939 Beau Geste, 1938 The Cowboy and the Lady, 1938 The Adventures of Marco Polo, 1938 Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, 1936 , 1936 The General Died at Dawn, 1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, 1935 The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, 1933 Alice in Wonderland, 1933 Today We Live, 1932 A Farewell to Arms, 1931 His Woman, 1931 I Take This Woman, 1931 City Streets, 1930 Morocco, 1930 The Texan, 1930 From World Film Directors Volume I. Ed. John Wakeman. The Only the Brave, 1929 The Virginian, 1929 Betrayal, 1928 Red Hair, H.W. Wilson Co. NY 1987 1928 The Legion of the Condemned, 1927 Nevada, 1927 The Last ‘WILLIAM WELLMAN” entry by John A. Gallagher Outlaw, 1927 Wings, 1927 Children of Divorce, 1927 Arizona Bound, 1927 It, 1926 The Winning of Barbara Worth, 1925 Ben-Hur: A Tale born February 29, 1896 Brookline MA. of the Christ, 1925 The Eagle, 1925 The Vanishing American, 1925 “Wild Bill” Wild Horse Mesa, and 1925 Riders of the Purple Sage. Expelled from Newton High for dropping a stink bomb on the principal’s head. Wellman worked briefly and ingloriously in the Hedda Hopper… Mrs. Powell (b. Elda Furry, May 2, 1885, wool, candy, and lumber trades before a plane flight revealed his true Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania – February 1, 1966, Hollywood, Los vocation: “I just had to fly.” Angeles, California) appeared in 143 films and TV programs, among In 1917 Wellman went to war to become a flier. He joined them 1966 “Alice in Wonderland or What's a Nice Kid Like You the French Foreign Legion—a necessary (and traumatic) Doing in a Place Like This?”, 1957 “Playhouse 90”, 1953 “Goodyear preliminary—and then the Lafayette Flying Corps, an offshoot of the Wellman—WINGS—4 more famous Lafayette Escadrille. As a fighter pilot with the Black tem—action, pacing, stunts. This was the greatest school a director Cat squadron, Wellman shot down three German aircraft before his ever had.” own plane was brought down, leaving him with back injuries that When Durning became ill during the making of The troubled him for the rest of his life. Eleventh Hour (1923), Wellman stepped in to finish the picture, Wellman left the Lafayette Flying Corps in March 1918 with pleasing the Fox executives enough to make him a full-fledged a Croix de Guerre and several American citations and returned to a director. His first feature was a Dustin Farnum vehicle, The Man Who hero’s welcome in Boston. With the help of a ghostwriter he Won (1923). A succession of low-budget Buck Jones melodramas described his adventures in Go, Get ‘Em, published in Boston in late followed. When they proved moderately successful. Wellman asked 1918. By that time he was serving in the American Air Corps as a for a raise and was promptly fired. It was the first of his many battles flight instructor at Rockwell Field, San Diego, not very far from with executives and producers. Thanks to his intransigent nature, Hollywood. “There were a lot of strange new people there,” he said. “Wild Bill” subsequently worked in every major studio in “actors and actresses, and they liked me and the uniform and the Hollywood, with the exception of Universal. medals; and I was very humble and my limp was eye-catching.” Out of work for a year, Wellman joined MGM in 1925, Before the war was over, Wellman was married to a beautiful young taking a demotion to assistant director. Soon afterwards he met a starlet, Helene Chadwick. They separated a month later and were singer and dancer named Margery Chapin and embarked on another subsequently divorced. short-lived marriage. After “doctoring” Robert Vignola’s Released from the Air Corps The Way of a Girl and Josef at the end of the war, Wellman von Sternberg and Phil remembered the telegram he had Rosen’s The Exquisite received from Douglas Fairbanks Sinner, Wellman was given a congratulating him on his war efforts project of his own, The Boob, and offering him a job. Donning his one of Joan Crawford’s first uniform and his medals, he went to see movies, and, the director Fairbanks, by then a major star, and proudly claims, her worst. was promptly given a sizable part in Completed in comedy Western, The Knickerbocker September 1925, The Boob Buckaroo (1919). Wellman found was not released for six himself excited by the movie business months and so was preceded but disgusted by the sight of himself into theatres by Wellman’s on screen at the premiere, mugging in next picture When Husbands thick makeup: “I stayed for just half Flirt, made for Columbia in the picture and then went out and 1925. Wellman was already vomited for no reason at all.” building a reputation as a If he could not stomach so unmanly a profession as acting, phenomenally rapid worker, and tempted by a bonus, he filmed this Wellman was not ready to give up on Hollywood. Discovering how script in less than four days. The independent much Al Parker had been paid for The Knickerbocker Buckaroo. He producer B. P. Schulberg was impressed and signed Wellman to a decided that he could be happy behind the camera. He started contract with his . When Schulberg joined Famous modestly as a messenger at the Goldwyn studios (where he had to Players-Lasky (soon to become Paramount), he took the young deliver fan mail to his estranged wife). Wellman took every chance director with him. he could to study the working methods of staff directors like Maurice Wellman’s first film at Paramount was (in his own words) Tourneur, , and Tod Browning. In A Short Time for an “atrocious” comedy, The Cat’s Pajamas (1926)—an ill-advised Insanity, his autobiography, he said that he “stole scripts, new ones, attempt to make an adult star of the child actress . old ones, and pored over them, always from a director’s point-of- Wellman was almost fired, but Paramount gave him one more chance view.” with (1926), adapted by The ambitious messenger caught the attention of Will from a story by Ernest Vajda. It was a backstage romance with Rogers, through whose influence he was soon promoted to assistant Florence Vidor as the star of a Russian theatrical troupe, Lowell propman. But Wellman’s real break came when General Pershing Sherman and as the two men who want her. visited the Goldwyn studios and recognized the ex-aviator (from a This has been called the most “European” of Wellman’s wartime encounter in a Paris brothel, according to Wellman). The films, showing the influence of German expressionism in Victor front office was impressed by this comradely meeting, and Wellman Milner’s dramatic lighting, and full of bravura effects. A memorable was promoted to assistant director, in this capacity working for example occurs in the climactic scene when the heroine, pursued Clarence Badger, E. Mason Hopper, and Alfred Green before moving through the darkened theatre by the lustful Sherman, jumps into a to the Fox studio in late 1921. At Fox, Wellman was assistant to magician’s rigged cabinet and disappears in a puff of smoke. Notably Harry Beaumont, Colin Campbell, Emmett Flynn, and his mentor well acted, the picture was both a critical and commercial success, Bernard J. Durning. The latter is now almost forgotten, but Wellman rehabilitating Wellman’s reputation at Paramount. told Kevin Brownlow that Durning “gave me two of the greatest years I ever had and taught me more than anybody in the business, He When King Vidor’s and Raoul Walsh’s What Price made all those thrilling melodramas and you learned everything from Glory? registered at the box office, Paramount wanted its own World War I epic. They settled on a flying story suggested by John Monk Wellman—WINGS—5

Saunders, himself a wartime pilot. Although Wellman had only minor surpassed it in impressing upon an audience a feeling of personal credits up to that time, he was the only director in Hollywood with participation.” In its day, the film had an impact on popular culture aerial combat experience, and with Schulberg’s support, he was comparable to that of Star Wars. The aviator became the favorite hero handed this choice assignment. John Monk Saunders was sent to of boys’ adventure stories, and the movie’s financial success Washington to solicit government help. And in the end, according to precipitated a ‘whole cycle of flying dramas, including Howard Kevin Brownlow. Wings “tied up thousands of soldiers, virtually all Hawks’ Dawn Patrol (1930) and Howard Hughes’ Hell’s Angels the pursuit planes the air force had. Billions of dollars worth of (1930). It made stars of both Rogers and Arlen and also boosted the equipment—and some of the finest military pilots in the country.” career of Gary Cooper, who made a strong impression in a brief scene There were angry speeches in Washington before the shooting was in a training camp. Wings received the first Oscar ever awarded for completed. best picture of the year, establishing Wellman as a major director at Wings (1927) was the first important picture to deal with the the age of thirty-one. role of the plane in World War I. It also embodied several themes Writing in 1978 in The War, the West, and the Wilderness, dear to Wellman’s heart—the romantic triangle, often squared by the Kevin Brownlow wrote that “Wings gets better the older it becomes. self-abnegation of one of the rivals; male friendship; and the Values that once seemed overly sentimental now seem so much a part horseplaying but deeply felt comradeship of groups of men engaged of their time that they no longer irritate. For most of its length, Wings in some shared—and usually avoids the grimness of war and dangerous—endeavor. Wings captures exactly the fierce follows the wartime fortunes of romanticism that so many veterans two young fighter pilots, played feel for it….Wellman hurls his by Charles “Buddy” Rogers and camera around the vast battlefield Richard Arlen. Rivals for the with exhilarating abandon. Even love of the same woman, they by today’s standards, his setups become friends after a bloody seem remarkably bold. Although fistfight. In the end, through a troops die with rather operatic tragic (or melodramatic) gestures, his epic handling of the accident, Rogers shoots down big drive is overwhelming, and the and kills Arlen when the latter is superimposition of thousands of escaping from the enemy lines in men marching into a horizon a German plane. Since both male where their destruction is pictured leads were virtually unknown, in split screen is a moment worthy the studio cast its biggest box- of Abel Gance’s classic J’accuse.” office draw, Clara Bow, as the Gary Cooper starred in heroine. Wellman’s next movie, The Legion Wellman, known as a of the Condemned (1928), another “one take” director, became a World War I aviation drama, with perfectionist in the filming of Wings, shooting scenes over and over as a beautiful spy. Scripted by John Monk Saunders, and again until he was satisfied with them. Up to that time, most “aerial” using a great deal of material originally shot for Wings, it was scenes had actually been shot on the ground, but in this film Wellman generally well received. Not so Ladies of the Mob (1928), Wellman’s stipulated that there should be no faking. The cinematographer Harry first crime movie, in which he worked once more with Clara Bow and Perry and his huge team of cameramen shot close-ups of the flyers Richard Arlen. Mordaunt Hall found it gloomy, artificial and from the rear cockpits of their planes and followed dogfights from a unedifying.” whole squadron of camera planes. Ladies of the Mob appears to be a , like the majority The movie’s climax is a reenactment of the Battle of Saint of Wellman’s silents. An exception—and one of his best early Mihiel, shot on the plains outside San Antonio, . A huge area films—is Beggars of Life (1928) featuring Arlen, , and was pounded by field guns until it became a convincing replica of the . Brooks gave one of her best performances as a girl mud and chaos on the western front. A battery of cameras was who kills her foster father when he tries to rape her, and then goes on mounted on a hundred-foot tower, with a further array of twenty-eight the run with a gentle young hobo. Most of the picture was shot in hand-held Eyemos in other strategic positions. The battle itself was Jacumba, California, near the Mexican border, where Wellman and planned like a real one by army officers in consultation with his crew are said to have plunged into a riotous two weeks of filmmakers, and 3,500 troops and sixty pilots were rehearsed for ten drinking, gambling, and brawling. Margaret Chapin accompanied her days. Previewed in San Antonio as a fourteen-reeler, Wings was cut husband to Jacumba, acting as a script girl, but the marriage ended to 12,300 feet for its New York premiere, when the major scenes soon afterward. were projected in Magnascope on a double-size screen. Then or later Beggars of Life, which offers the first clear indication of (accounts differ), sound effects were added to convey the din of Wellman’s burgeoning social conscience, includes one sound scene in battle. which Beery, as the truculent bum Red, sings a song. Told Wings was a huge success, praised by flyers for its that Beery would have to stand motionless in this scene because the authenticity and by critics for its spectacle. Photoplay’s reviewer microphone was immovable, Wellman (according to eyewitness found the melodramatic plot “weakly built” and lacking in David Selznick) hung it on a broom handle and shot the scene with conviction, “with the exception of several touching scenes,” but many Beery singing as he walked. Wellman thus joins the sizable company agreed with Quinn Martin that “there has been no movie…which has of directors credited with the invention of the boom microphone. Wellman—WINGS—6

Whether or not the claim is correct. Beggars of Life, as Frank The film’s tight editing, mobile camerawork, and powerful Thompson writes, “is a testament of Wellman’s exhilaration with use of sound, together with Cagney’s electric performance, made it, movement”—a film about movement, about people who are bound to as Variety’s Reviewer wrote, the “roughest, toughest, and best of the advance constantly….The story and acting are simple catalysts that gang films to date….It’s lowbrow material given such workmanship make the motion occur.” On the basis of this film and Wings, as to make it highbrow.” Richard Watts Jr. went further, finding in Wellman was named by Film Daily as one of the world’s best the picture “a quality of grim directness, Zolaesque power, and directors for 1928-1929. chilling credibility which makes it far more real and infinitely He made the transition to sound easily, and as Thompson impressive than the run of gangster films.”…. says, his first talkies “moved just as much as his silents,” differing Wellman flourished at Warners, where his taut style was from them mostly in the matter of close-ups. Wellman said, “You use ideally suited to the studio’s tabloid approach to contemporary issues. close-ups…to get a point over.” With dialogue to do this for him, he The speed and economy of his filmmaking was much appreciated by seldom moved in closer than a medium shot, even at moments of the thrifty Jack Warner. Having propelled Cagney to stardom in the high drama. Public Enemy, he set Barbara Stanwyck on the same path in Night Wellman’s relationship with Paramount, always shaky, was Nurse (1931), a lurid but fast-paced and highly entertaining thriller. turning sour. His early sound films there were strictly routine Stanwyck plays an idealistic young nurse who rescues two little girls assignments….Disarmingly modest about his work, Wellman said from the clutches of a murderous doctor and his brutal chauffeur that “for every good picture, I made five or six stinkers. But I always (Clark Gable). Wellman was notoriously more at home with actors tried to do it a little differently. I don’t know whether I accomplished than actresses, but the tough and infazable Stanwyck it, but I tried.” In the opinion of his admirers, he succeeded much was an exception, and he made several more movies with her, at better than he has been given credit for…. Warners and elsewhere. Wellman made one more film at Paramount, another At this point in his career Wellman was churning out movies variation on the Wings formula called Young Eagles (1930), then at the rate of five or six a year. Few of them are of much artistic broke his contract to join interest, though several are Warner Brothers-First remarkable for the candor with which National. At about the same they address America’s problems time he married a polo-playing during the depression. Notable flyer named Marjorie examples are The Conquerors (1932) Crawford—another short-lived made on loan to RKO and drawing union. Wellman stayed with parallels between the Depression and Warners for three years, the earlier economic collapse of finding a kindred spirit in the 1873, and Heroes for Sale (1933). tough young production chief The latter had Darryl F. Zanuck. His first two as a wounded war hero who comes Warner assignments showed home addicted to the morphine his versatility—the football administered to him as a painkiller. musical Maybe It’s Love Cured of his addiction, he reenters (1930) with Joe E. Brown, and society in the midst of the depression, the railroad drama Other confused and disillusioned, his job Men’s Women (1931), starring gone, his wife dead. This film offers Mary Astor and featuring in an astonishingly bleak view of the minor roles Joan Blondell and American dream gone wrong. The . upbeat ending, pinning its faith on President Roosevelt’s inaugural Cagney was originally cast as the protagonists’s sidekick in address, struck many critics as artificial and unconvincing. Wellman’s next picture (1931) but, on the In the same year (1933), which saw the release of no fewer director’s recommendation, wound up with the lead role. The movie than seven of his pictures, Wellman made one of the best films o his traces the rise and fall of a Chicago mobster, Tom Powers. It was career, Wild Boys of the Road. Scripted by Earl Baldwin, it shows made in twenty-six days at a cost of $151,000. Economically how, little by little, a bunch of middle-class young people have their photographed by Dev Jennings, it made excellent use of stock shots Andy Hardy certainties stripped away from them by the deepening of turn-of-the-century Chicago in a scene-setting prologue.It is said Depression until they are forced to live on the run, stealing and that Wellman shot only 360 feet of film that was not used in the final begging to survive. As in Heroes for Sale, the film’s bleak message is cut. softened at the end. Charged with vagrancy and armed robbery, the Zanuck had been dubious about the project, believing that central trio are told by a magistrate sympathetic to the New Deal that the gangster genre was played out. Wellman won him over by “things are going to get better now.” The largely unknown cast was promising to make The Public Enemy “the toughest goddam one of headed by , Rochelle Hudson, and Dorothy Coonan, the them all.” He succeeded, especially in the notorious scene in which nineteen-year-old dancer who in March 1934 became Wellman’s Cagney mashes half a grapefruit into the face of his mistress (Mae fourth (and last) wife, and in time the mother of their seven children. Clarke) and the nightmarish finale, when Tom Powers’ trussed and [She was actually his fifth wife. His first, a Frenchwoman, was not bullet-ridden corpse is delivered to his mother’s house (where she is revealed until much later.] playing “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” on the Victrola. Wellman—WINGS—7

Wild Boys did poorly at the box office and had a mixed films, this one is marred by its romantic subplot, which threatens to reception from contemporary critics. A reviewer in the New York take over the movie. The best sequences recapture the excitement of Times wrote that “by endowing the film with a happy ending, the the aerial work in Wings, with the addition of sound and color. producers have robbed it of its value as a social challenge.” On the A much better film followed, a remake of ’s other hand, William Troy thought that “never before does one recall 1926 adaptation of P. C. Wren’s novel of the French Foreign Legion, having witnessed an American picture whose climax is made to Beau Geste. Wellman assembled an impressive cast, with Gary consist in a pitched battle between a band of ragged outlaws and the Cooper, , and as the gallant Geste police, in which the sympathy is brothers and Brian Donlevy as the manifestly with the former.” sadistic Sergeant The film’s reputation has grown Markoff.Wellman’s Beau Geste since then. It has found its way closely follows Brenon’s silent onto a number of college version and was filmed on the same courses, and Todd McCarthy, in location, in the desert near Yuma, Jean-Pierre Coursodon’s Arizona…. American Directors, goes so far as to describe it as “Wellman’s Walter Van Tilburg one film with a claim to Clark’s 1940 novel The Ox-Bow greatness.” Incident was a “serious Western,” Wellman had put a using the genre as a backdrop for a great deal of himself into Wild poetic tragedy of intolerance and Boys and was stung by its mob violence. Wellman fell in love apparent failure. His next with the book and bought the rights Warners assignment was a college musical, (1933)—a himself. He approached several studios, but the downbeat story— briskly cynical comedy, featuring a surprisingly vicious fistfight with little action and no romance—was deemed uncommercial. between Dick Powell and Lyle Talbot. After that Wellman went Finally , he made a deal with 20th Century-Fox, which agreed to freelance for a time, directing Spencer Tracy in a comdy-drama about finance the movie on condition that he direct a picture a year for the wiretapping, (1934), for Zanuck’s newly formed studio for five years—two of them to be chosen by Zanuck and 20th Century Pictures, then Stingaree (194) at RKO—a musical directed by Wellman whether he liked them or not. romance based on E. w. Hornung’s stories about an Australian Robin The Ox-Bow Incident is set in Nevada in 1885. Hood. Looking for Trouble, appropriately enough, provided ample The movie failed at the box office, as the industry cynics had evidence of Wellman’s explosive temper—he and Tracy disliked predicted. Its critical reception, on the other hand, was enthusiastic. each other on sight, and the two men twice had to be forcibly The Ox-Bow Incident was nominated for a best picture extracted from brawls…. Oscar and was soon established as a classic of the genre. However, Wellman spent much of his time at MGM feuding with James Agee wrote that this, “one of the best and most interesting studio head Louis B. Mayer and consequently was relegated to run- pictures I have seen for a long time,” was ultimately disappointing on of-the-mill material….In 1937 Wellman asked to be released from his account of its “stiff overconsciousness.” It seemed to him “a mosaic Metro contract and rejoined David O. Selznick at his new Selznick- of over-appreciated effects which continually robbed nature of its International Pictures. Wellman professed a hatred of producers own warmth and energy.”… throughout his career, but he and Selznick worked very well together. Their first collaboration at Selznick-International was A Star is Born For the first time since The Ox-Bow Incident, Wellman (1937), scripted by Dorothy Parker, Alan Campbell, and Robert found a project with which he could involve himself personally and Carson from a story devised by Carson and Wellman. It draws on the passionately. The Story of GI Joe (1945), based on the writings of war real life tragedies of such fallen idols as John Gilbert and John correspondent Ernie Pyle, was offered to him by the independent Barrymore, tracing the rise to stardom of Vicki Lester () producer Lester Cowan. Wellman at first resisted, saying that he as her alcoholic husband, Norman Maine (Frederic March), plummets hated “the God-damned infantry,” but Cowan won him over, and the from celebrity to obscurity, finally killing himself to save her career. film was one of the best of his career. This often savage meditation on what lay behind the The story of GI Joe offers an honest and humanistic view of glamour and glitter of Hollywood was a smash hit. “For about the the common infantryman as seen through the exploits and sufferings first time,” wrote Otis Ferguson, “the mechanics of the industry are of one patrol. Burgess Meredith played Pyle, and Wellman took worked in with thorough coverage….And all done with a sense of the out of B-movies to play the patrol leader Lieutenant actual hardness and fabulous confusion….W. Howard Greene Walker—so powerfully that he was nominated for an Oscar as best received a special Oscar for his photography, which supporting actor. “Final judgment must wait on time,” wrote Richard avoided the garishness of most pioneer color movies, and Wellman Griffith, “but I feel that Wellman’s film deserves to stand beside and Carson shared another Academy Award for best original Three Soldiers, Brady’s Civil War photographs, and the pioneer work story….The immense success of A Star is Born and Nothing Sacred of Ambrose Bierce and Stephen Crane as one of the greatest brought Wellman a contract with Paramount, where for five years he documents of warfare.” James Agee called it “a tragic and eternal produced as well as directed his films. His first project there was a work of art.” labor of love, Men With Wings (1938), tracing the growth of aviation Wellman never again reached such heights, but the films he through the melodramatic story of two pioneering aviators vaguely made over the following twelve years included some excellent work. modeled on the Wright Brothers. Like most of Wellman’s flying Among his successes were two movies made in 1948 for 20th Wellman—WINGS—8

Century-Fox: the spy thriller The Iron Curtain and Yellow Sky, a themselves in drop-kicking heads and somber standing around. tough and exciting Western based on a story by W. R. Burnett…. Wellman is at his best in stiff, vulgar, low-pulp material. In that setup he has a low-budget ingenuity, which creates flashes of ferocious Wellman had high hopes for Lafayette Escadrille (1958), brassiness, an authentic practical-joke violence, and a brainless hell- intended as an autobiographical memoir of his days of flying and raising.” As Henri Agel wrote as long ago as 1963, “Wellman’s fighting. His story had a tragic ending, but Warner Brothers made handicap is that he has no doubt made too many films….He will have him change it. “The story was too close to me,” he said later, “and it to be patiently rediscovered.” nearly broke my tough old heart when they wouldn’t let me make it the way it really happened. . . .The happy From The Man and His Wings: William A. ending destroyed the whole thing, and I got Wellman and the Making of the First Best out of the business because of it.” Picture. William Wellman Jr. Praeger, Westport, CT & London, 2006. Wellman retired in 1962 but continued to write scripts and toy with Before 1926, there had been some various projects. He was awarded the D.W. aerial work in films; however, flying footage Griffith Award in 1972 and has been was gathered from independent sources, honored by major retrospectives in Los government financed films, and with the use of Angeles and at the British Film Institute. miniatures. Actors were not seen in actual flight. Wellman died of leukemia at the age of When an actor or stunt pilot was seen in the air, seventy-nine, and as he requested, his ashes that footage was shot on the ground to simulate were scattered from the skies. in flight. Like his friends John Ford, Victor Wellman believed that the story and Fleming, Raoul Walsh, and Howard screenplay were of the utmost importance. John Hawks, Wellman was a hard-nosed man’s Saunders was an extremely helpful ally, as he man who refused to regard himself as and Wellman spoke the same flyer’s lingo. anything so effete as an artist and insisted Before and during production, Wellman that his only aim was to entertain. He has interjected the script with many ingredients that often been compared to Hawks because of he had experienced during his days in France their similarity of subject matter and their and at the front… shared preoccupation with groups of professionals in crisis situations. By the time September 1926 rolled around, the Wings Unlike Hawks, however, Wellman would direct virtually anything company had been a mainstay in the community [in San Antonio that a studio handed him. “You make all kinds of things,” he said, Texas] for a long time. After six months of pre-production, with the “and that, I think, is what gives you the background to eventually full support of the War Department and $16 million worth of make some very lucky picture.” government manpower and equipment, and a production budget of $2 For nearly forty years, Wellman was regarded as one of the million—the most expensive budget of all-time!—the Wings express best directors in Hollywood. His reputation went into decline in the blasted off from Paramount Studios and landed in San Antonio, 1950s, and much of his best work was forgotten. You Never Know Texas. Wellman later wrote, Women, Beggars of Life, Heroes for Sale, The President Vanishes, “We stayed at the Saint Anthony Hotel and were and The Robin Hood of El Dorado went unseen for years, until there for nine months. I know that was the correct time because the Wellman was rediscovered and championed by such critics as Kevin elevator operators were girls and they all became pregnant. They Brownlow, Richard Schickel, Gerald Peary, Frank Thompson, and were replaced by old men, and the company’s hunting grounds were Manny Farber. barren. was making The Rough Riders at the same Wellman prided himself on working fast, and along the way time and was staying at the same hotel. San Antonio became the he made many poor films. At his best, as Richard Combs writes, he Armageddon of a magnificent sexual Donnybrook. The town was “has been compared, on the one hand, to Griffith for the simplicity lousy with movie people, and if you think that contributes to a state of and lyricism of his treatment of a social order and its outcasts…and, tranquility, you don’t know your motion picture ABCs. To recount all on the other, to Stroheim for an inclination toward symbolism, edging that happens when a company of well over two hundred are taken close to expressionism in some of the effects by which he attempts to away from their homes and families, and dumped into a strange give an entirely subjective cast to the action.” The unevenness of his locale? It’s rough on the company and rough on the locale. work and its stylistic eclecticism has made it difficult for admirers to The fires that start burning are burning in every claim auteur status for him, but not impossible. Frank Thompson, for neighborhood in the country. The only difference being that we who one, maintains that “his films’ concerns, attitudes, moral perspectives, lit the match are in the movies. We are monkeys in a weird cage. visual and aural styles are inextricably tied in with Wellman’s tastes, There is something unique about us, and only we know what it is. moods, and prejudices. There is a wholeness to his work—in style, Maybe the closest to us is a doctor. His business is human beings, quality, and point-of-view—that separates it from the run-of-the-mill sick ones. Our business is the same, only our beings are not suffering, studio product for which it is often mistaken.” they are acting suffering or acting happiness, success or failure, Another of Wellman’s champions, Manny Farber, suggests excitement or boredom, life or death—everything that can happen to that “in any Bill Wellman operation, there are at least four directors— a human being, every thought they posses the actor echoes, the writer a sentimentalist, deep thinker, hooey vaudevillian, and an expedient writes, the director directs, the cameraman photographs, and every short-cut artist whose special love is for mulish toughs expressing other department has a share in. Wellman—WINGS—9

Day in and day out, year after year, you are crying or you are alongside the picture planes. There was too much movement of laughing, you are tense or relaxed, your emotions are turned on and camera and plane. Even bolting the camera down did not solve the off like a spigot, and you must be careful not to become so callused problems. that when the real thing happens it hasn’t been robbed of its vitality. Both the camera plane and picture plane moved in A motion picture company lives hard and plays hard, and they better opposition to one another—the flimsy crafts vibrated, wobbled, and or they will all go nuts.”… shook with the wind, moving backward and forward, up and down, and side to side, resulting in a shot that was unsteady, unclear, and From the get-go, Wellman got along with the Air Corps and uncomfortable to the eye of the audience. their officers; the Army was another matter. Wellman explained, E. Burton Steene saved the day! Wellman recalled, “Burton “We had the army too, thousands of them, infantry, artillery, the Steene was the number one aerial photographer of the 20s and I works, and in command a general who had two monumental hatreds: grabbed him for Wings, the luckiest grab I ever made. He had a fliers and movie people. camera with an Akeley head, which means it had gears, a pan handle He met me, the director, and immediately disliked me. This has and a frightening whine to it as Burton panned up or down or from happened to me many times before, but never so quickly. I hardly side to side. For 1926, it was unbelievable and Burton was so expert drew a breath and I was in the doghouse, for three hatreds: I was an at it, he shot ninety percent of all the air scenes in Wings.” ex-flier turned motion-picture director and I was only twenty-nine Because stunt pilots, not the actors, were flying the picture years old, and apparently anybody under forty was to him ungrown. planes, the cameramen couldn’t get close or the cameras would We had a couple of very hot vendettas, and I could get nowhere with identify them instead of Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen. Therefore, the old boy until I reminded him that no close-ups! Wellman tried shooting whether he liked it or not, he was working close-ups on the ground, faking the fact for and that I, despite that they weren’t in the air, but it looked my age, was the director of the Paramount completely unreal. picture called Wings and brought a copy Wellman himself took to the of the orders from the War Department as skies to view the complex problems. He a convincer. It convinced. The old boy and Harry Perry discussed all the was still in the army. possibilities and made a number of decisions: After two months of shooting, *Camera mounts would be Wellman decided to throw away created and fastened or strapped to the everything they had filmed. The flying fuselages of the planes. scenes didn’t look real. Jesse Lasky later *Platforms and up to one- wrote, “The company entrained to Texas- hundred-foot towers would be —and sat there. Wellman stubbornly constructed from the ground to refused to start shooting until there were photograph the low-flying aircraft and clouds in the sky. There were days on end the ground warfare. of perfect sunshine, and our $200-a-week *Thirteen camera operators director wouldn’t turn on a camera, while would film the aerial sequences. overhead mounted at thousands of dollars *There would be no trickery in a day. I confess that we were about ready the filming of actors flying—Buddy to yank him off the picture and replace Rogers and Richard Arlen would learn to him with someone who would be more fly. Motor-driven cameras would be amenable.” mounted on the front of two-cockpit Wellman wrote, “Say you can’t airplanes or behind the rear cockpit; once shoot a dogfight without clouds to a guy airborne, the safety pilot would duck who doesn’t know anything about flying and he thinks you’re nuts. down or hide behind a large headrest, and the actors would turn on He’ll say, ‘Why can’t you?’ It’s unattractive. Number two, you get no the cameras and pilot the planes. sense of speed, because there’s nothing there that’s parallel. You need Arlen had some flying experience; Rogers, none. They were something solid behind the planes. The clouds give you that, but given the best flight instructors available, but only received a few against a blue sky, it’s like a lot of goddam flies! And hours’ training, Rogers remembered, “I was the photographer, the photographically, it’s terrible.”… director, the actor, everything…for five hundred feet.” Arlen fared quite well with his flying, but Rogers, Wellman recalled, “was a Since no aerial photography on or near this scale had been tough son of a bitch. He hated flying, which made him deathly sick. done previously, a new book would have to be written. Both hand- He logged over ninety-eight hours in the picture and every time he cranked and battery-run cameras were standard for the era. Cranking came down, he vomited. That’s a man with guts. I love him.” by hand was preferred because the operator could control the speed of Paramount did not understand either the waste or Wellman’s the action by cranking slower or faster. The motorized camera filmed passion for realism. They were also afraid that he was going to kill at the same speed. the stars. During the early attempts at Wings photography, the operators tried to hand-hold and crank the cameras while flying

Wellman—WINGS—10

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2012 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXV: Sept 4 M Fritz Lang 1931 Sept 11 THE FOUR FEATHERS Zoltán Korda 1939 Sept 18 CHILDREN OF PARADISE Marcel Carné 1945 Oct 2 KISS ME DEADLY Robert Aldrich 1955 Oct 9 LONELY ARE THE BRAVE David Miller 1962 Oct 16 FAIL-SAFE Sidney Lumet 1964 Oct 23 THE STUNT MAN Richard Rush 1980 Oct 30 COME AND SEE Elem Klimov 1985 Nov 6 GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES Isao Takahata 1988 Nov 13 MAGNOLIA Paul Thomas Anderson 1999 Nov 20 RUSSIAN ARK Alexander Sokurov 2002 Nov 27 WHITE MATERIAL Claire Denis 2009 Dec 4 A SEPARATION Asghar Farhadi 2011

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