William Wellman Movies

The third remake of the 1932 drama What Price Hollywood?, this adaptation of A Star Is Born moved the story into the mid-1970's and changed the milieu from the movie business to pop music. John Norman Howard (Kris Kristofferson) is a rock star whose career has peaked; he is numbed by booze and cocaine, his music has lost its edge, and his performances have become painfully haphazard. One night, after a concert, he stumbles into a club where he sees a singing group fronted by Esther Hoffman (Barbra Streisand). John likes what he hears and loves what he sees; he tries picking her up, but soon realizes if he wants to see her, he'll have to ask her out on an actual date. He does, and before long the two become involved, although Esther has trouble with John's rock star lifestyle. One night, a typically burned-out John lets Esther sing a few songs at one of his shows; before long she's the talk of the record business. While Esther's star begins to rise, John's continues to sink, and while she desperately tries get John to clean up and focus on his music, it may be too late to save him. The song "Evergreen" earned this film an Academy Award for Best Song; the credits contain the amusing notice, "Ms. Streisand's Clothes from ... Her Closet." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Clark Gable is the largely nonheroic hero of the sprawling western Across the Wide Missouri. A cunning trapper who lives purely by his wits, Gable avoids being scalped by the Blackfoot Indians by marrying Maria Elena Marques, the chief's daughter. This marriage of convenience also allows Gable to trap to his heart's content in Blackfoot territory. After bearing a child, Marques is killed by a warring tribe; the opportunistic Gable at first considers abandoning the child, but at long last does right by the boy. Adolphe Menjou steals the show as an eternally inebriated French trapper, while Ricardo Montalban and J. Carroll Naish are convincing (and noncondescending) in their Native American characterizations. Evidently, Across the Wide Missouri tested poorly when it was first previewed: the final release version runs a surprisingly brief 78 minutes, with narrator Howard Keel (who otherwise does not appear) filling in the continuity gaps. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This second of three movie versions of P.C. Wren's adventure novel Beau Geste is a virtual scene-for-scene remake of the 1927 silent version. We open on the now-famous scenes of a remote, burning desert fort, manned by the dead Foreign Legionnaires, then flash back to the early lives of the Geste brothers. As children, the Gestes swear eternal loyalty to one another and to their family. One of the boys, young Beau (played as a youth by Donald O'Connor), witnesses his beloved aunt (Heather Thatcher) apparently stealing a valuable family jewel in order to finance the Geste home; Beau chooses to remain silent rather than disgrace his aunt. Years later, the grown Beau (Gary Cooper) again protects his aunt by confessing to the theft and running off to join the Foreign Legion. He is joined in uniform by faithful brothers John (Ray Milland) and Digby (Robert Preston), who in turn are pursued by a slimy thief (J. Carroll Naish). The crook is in cahoots with sadistic Legion Sgt. Markov (Brian Donlevy, in one of the most hateful portrayals ever captured on celluloid), who is later put in charge of Fort Zinderneuf, where Beau and John are stationed. When the Arabs attack, Markov proves himself a valiant soldier; it is he who hits upon the idea of convincing the Arabs that the fort is still fully manned by propping up the corpses of the casualties at the guard posts. Beau is seriously wounded, and while the greedy Markov searches for the jewel supposedly hidden on Beau's person, he is held at bay by loyal John. The suddenly enervated Beau kills Markov, then dies himself--but not before entrusting two notes to John, one of which requests that John give Beau the "Viking funeral" he'd always wanted (this is why the fort is in flames at the beginning of the film). After the battle, Digby Geste, a bugler with the relief troops, comes upon Beau's dead body, and appropriates the notes. As it turns out, John Geste is the only one who survives to return to England. He gives his aunt Beau's letter, which explains why Beau had confessed and run off--"a 'beau geste', indeed" comments his tearful aunt. No one missed nominal leading lady Susan Hayward in this essentially all-male entertainment. For years available only in muddily processed or truncated versions, Beau Geste was restored to its pristine glory by the American Film Institute in the late 1980s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fox Western star Buck Jones enjoyed a change of pace in this boxing melodrama directed by a young William Wellman. Returning from the war, Dan O'Hara discovers that his wife has left him for another man. To find a new purpose in life, Big Dan turns his home into a gym for street boys, where he teaches them how to box. He later falls in love with pretty Dora Allen (Marian Nixon), but a jealous woman (Jacqueline Gadsden) is only too happy to inform Dora of Big Dan's marital status. Fortunately, the errant wife obligingly dies in a sanitarium, leaving Dan and Dora free to marry. Big Dan successfully mixed action with sentiment, leaving the comic relief to veteran comedian Monte Collins and African-American actress Mattie Peters, the latter portraying a no-nonsense factotum named Ophelia. Hired originally to keep the studio's reigning cowboy star Tom Mix in line, Buck Jones proved to be no mere copy and quickly found his own audience. Unlike Tom Mix, Jones would regularly be cast in non-Westerns, but his bread-and-butter remained sagebrush tales. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This early William Wellman directorial effort stars George K. Arthur as the title character, an incredibly naïve farmhand named Peter Good. Spurned by Amy (Gertrude Olmstead), the girl he loves, Peter sets out to prove that he isn't a boob. He joins a posse hunting for a gang of bootleggers, and sure as shootin' he rounds up the bad guys single-handedly. The film's highlight is an elaborate production number set at a burlesque theater, where scores of contract starlets have their clothes removed with the help of wires and pulleys. Billed third in the cast is Joan Crawford, whom MGM was obviously preparing for bigger and better things. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Aerial footage distinguishes this romantic-triangle melodrama set among pilots in a flying circus. Jill (Sally Eilers) loves Jim (Richard Barthelmess), but he insists that fliers shouldn't marry, so the disappointed Jill marries his younger brother Neil (Tom Brown) instead. The resulting tensions disrupt their lives and careers. Bit-part alert: Watch for John Wayne as Neil's co-pilot. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

Cowboy Buck Saxon (Buck Jones) is falsely accused of attempting to murder his rival in love (Jack McDonald) and is on the run from the law. He is hired incognito by a travelling circus and works there as a trick rider. On the job, Saxon falls for the show's blond high-wire artist, Bird Taylor (Marian Nixon). They marry, despite the objections from a lovesick animal trainer, and Buck later gets the chance to clear himself of attempted murder. Fox was grooming lovely Marian Nixon for top stardom and almost succeeded. In the end, the attempt was defeated by subpar material and Nixon never enjoyed the success of another Fox starlet, Janet Gaynor. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this simple little romantic drama, Charles "Buck" Jones plays fireman Andy McGee. McGee becomes a fireman over the protests of his mother (Lucy Beaumont), who doesn't want to see her son sacrifice his life the way his father did. When she dies, McGee adopts little Elizabeth Stevens (Eileen O'Malley), who takes care of him instead of vice versa. Along the way he meets Agnes Evans, a chorus girl (Marian Nixon), and falls in love. He finds out she is married to a worthless alcoholic, and he sadly has to write her off. When the home in which she lives catches fire, he comes to the rescue and saves her. Then he finds out that her husband -- who had locked her in her room -- is still inside. McGee does his duty and goes back for the husband. His heroic attempt to rescue the man, however, is in vain. The death of Agnes' nasty husband paves the way for her relationship with McGee. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

James Garner stars as WWII hero Major William Darby in this characteristically gusty William Wellman combat film. Darby organizes a highly-trained group of rangers, to be deployed in behind-the-lines activities in Italy and Northern Africa. The first portion of the film details the training, with time out for a few comic and romantic interludes; the second part shows Darby's Rangers in full, ferocious action. In addition to Garner, Warner Bros. used Darby's Rangers to spotlight another of its TV stars, Edd "Kookie" Byrnes; Bill Wellman Jr. also shows up in the supporting role of Eli Clatworthy. The film was adapted from the book by Major James Altieri. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ruth Chatterton tears up the screen in this fast-paced, lusty comedy. Alison Drake is an automobile magnate, a hard-nosed, hardboiled business woman making dozens of important decisions a day. In her private life, however, she is passionate and bold in her pursuit of male companionship, which she frequently finds among the ranks of her own employees and executives; the problem is that these men can't abide the fact that back at work, she's all business again; and she keeps having to get their long, mopey faces out of her presence by transferring them elsewhere. Then she meets Jim Thorne (George Brent), a gifted engineer who is attracted to Drake but isn't a callow, cowtowing yes-man, and isn't awed by her millions. After a few awkward encounters, they find a balance in their lives together, or so she thinks, until he proposes marriage. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

The focus of this heartfelt family film is Skeeter (Brandon de Wilde), a 14-year-old orphan who lives with his aged Uncle Jesse (Walter Brennan) in the swamps of the deep South. Their lives are brightened by a stray dog that Skeeter discovers and takes in. He makes the basenji his own, but eventually finds out that the dog is missing and its owner has posted a reward for its return. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

During World War II, a Military Air Transport Command DC-3 piloted by a civilian crew is forced down in northern Labrador. The five men, led by Dooley (John Wayne), have barely any food and almost no way to keep warm, and their power supply is fading fast, but they have to find a way of staying alive until search planes find them. At first, even Dooley is overwhelmed by the responsibility for his crew's safety, and he is too lax in handling them -- but after one man dies, frozen to death just steps from help, he takes over and pushes his men and himself to the limits of their endurance; he even seems ready to crack himself at one moment. Meanwhile, the men who fly with Dooley push themselves and their machines past their endurance limits searching the arctic wastes for the downed plane. Island in the Sky -- based on the book by Ernest K. Gann (perhaps the best aviation novel ever written), which was, in turn, based on a true incident that happened during the war -- is one of the most startling movies in Wayne's output. He doesn't even look like the "star" John Wayne, but like a real pilot, and the cast, made up of familiar faces, all look like the real article; indeed, this movie should have been in the running for Academy Awards for costuming and makeup, just for making these familiar performers, such as Lloyd Nolan (in maybe his best performance) and Andy Devine (ditto), look like real pilots and ordinary men, rather than familiar actors. You end up feeling like you're watching a documentary, and the effect is bracing and unsettling, and dramatically unparalleled in Wayne's entire output. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide