WILLIAM WELLMAN: A Daughter’s Prospective

Richard Cromwell, Franchot Tone and Gary Cooper in THE LIVES OF THE BENGAL LANCER (1935)
Richard Cromwell, Franchot Tone and Gary Cooper in the adventure THE LIVES OF THE BENGAL LANCER (1935)
Robert Preston, Gary Cooper and Ray Milland are brothers who join the French Foreign Legion in BEAU GESTE (1939)

Films of the Golden Age,
Issue Number 121,
Summer 2025

“Most motion picture directors are a little screwy./ I know that fliers are, and I have been both, so draw your own conclusions.”

An arrogant, intimating but passionate “tough guy” director known for his physical/verbal clashes with studio execs, WILLIAM WELLMAN (1896-1976) was a delinquent who bettered himself as a WWI French Foreign Legion fighter pilot hero. Thanks to Douglas Fairbanks, he worked his way up from mail messenger to director of Buck Jones western silents. After his huge break directing the first “Best Picture” aviation classic WINGS (1927), he was primarily underused for typical dogfight dramas. Nominated three times, his only Oscar win was for co-writing A STAR IS BORN (1937). Other classics include PUBLIC ENEMY (1931), THE OX-BOW INCIDENT (1943) and BATTLE GROUND (1949).​

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