William WellmanFilmography

Gable: The King Remembered

Lafayette Escadrille

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Tab Hunter, Etchika Choureau, William Wellman, Jr., Jody McCrea, Dennis Devine

Synopsis: Though director William Wellman was attached to the Lafayette Flying Corps during WW1, many people believed that he was actually with the celebrated Lafayette Escadrille, and this 1958 actioner does little to dispel that belief. The film concentrates on a group of courageous young American Read More

Darby's Rangers

Crew: Director

Actors: James Garner, Etchika Choureau, Jack Warden, Edward Byrnes, Venetia Stevenson

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Goodbye, My Lady

Crew: Director

Actors: Walter Brennan, Phil Harris, Brandon de Wilde, Sidney Poitier, William Hopper

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Blood Alley

Crew: Director

Actors: Berry Kroeger, John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Paul Fix, Joy Kim, Anita Ekberg

Synopsis: John Wayne teaches those dirty Commies yet another lesson in Blood Alley. Wayne plays a veteran seaman who comes to the aid of Lauren Bacall, the daughter of a missionary doctor killed by the Red Chinese. It takes no little persuasion, but Bacall finally convinces Wayne to smuggle a group of Read More

The High and the Mighty

Crew: Director

Actors: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, Robert Stack, Jan Sterling

Synopsis: For The High and the Mighty, director William Wellman made a point of using Cinemascope to heighten the dramatic content of a confined screen space -- in this instance, the cockpit of a plane in flight. Copilot Dan Roman (John Wayne) seems a lot more in control of things than Captain John Sullivan Read More

Ring of Fear

Crew: Director

Actors: Jack Stang, Pat O'Brien, Mickey Spillane, Sean McClory, Marian Carr

Synopsis: A real "must see" for devotees of 1950s pop culture, Ring of Fear boasts a script co-written by character actor Paul Fix and a cast which includes the likes of animal trainer Clyde Beatty and pulp-fiction novelist Mickey Spillane. The story takes place in Beatty's travelling circus, where a Read More

Track of the Cat

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Mitchum, Teresa Wright, Diana Lynn, Tab Hunter, Beulah Bondi

Synopsis: In this experimental 1954 Western, director William Wellman uses black-and-white backgrounds with occasional splatches of color on certain characters' bodies and clothes. On a snowbound ranch in northern California, the Bridges family is trapped by winter weather and its own internal conflicts. It Read More

Island in the Sky

Crew: Director

Actors: John Wayne, Lloyd Nolan, Walter Abel, James Arness, Andy Devine

Synopsis: 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 Read More

My Man and I

Crew: Director

Actors: Shelley Winters, Ricardo Montalban, Wendell Corey, Claire Trevor, Robert Burton

Synopsis: While Shelley Winters is top-billed, Ricardo Montalban is the real star of My Man and I. Montalban plays Mexican transient farmer Chu-Chu Ramirez, determined to make something of himself and improve his lot in life. He falls in love with disillusioned alcoholic Nancy (Winters), intending to help Read More

Across the Wide Missouri

Crew: Director

Actors: Clark Gable, Ricardo Montalban, John Hodiak, Adolphe Menjou, Maria Elena Marques

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Westward the Women

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Taylor, Denise Darcel, Hope Emerson, John McIntire, Henry Nakamura, Julie Bishop

Synopsis: Though Frank Capra wrote the original story treatment for MGM's Westward the Women, he was too busy to direct the film, and handed the reigns instead to his former Liberty Films partner William A. Wellman. This stark, no-nonsense outdoor drama stars Robert Taylor as a trail guide named Buck, who Read More

The Happy Years

Crew: Director

Actors: Dean Stockwell, Darryl Hickman, Scotty Beckett, Leon Ames, Margalo Gillmore

Synopsis: Owen Johnson's novel The Lawrenceville School Stories (compiled from short stories originally published in The Saturday Evening Post) was the basis for The Happy Years. The film is set at an early 20th-century boy's prep school; Dean Stockwell plays an habitual troublemaker sent to this school as Read More

It's a Big Country

Crew: Director

Actors: Ethel Barrymore, Gary Cooper, Van Johnson, Gene Kelly, Janet Leigh

Synopsis: Comprised of eight unrelated episodes of inconsistent quality, this anthology piece of American propaganda features some of MGM Studios' best directors, screenwriters and actors; it is narrated by Louis Calhern. Stories are framed by the lecture of a university professor. In one tale a Boston Read More

The Next Voice You Hear

Crew: Director

Actors: James Whitmore, Nancy Davis, Gary Gray, Lillian Bronson, Art Smith

Synopsis: The Next Voice You Hear was a pet project of MGM producer Dore Schary, who lavished more attention on this modestly budgeted drama than he did on some of his "bigger" projects. Though based on characters first introduced in the 1942 film Joe Smith, American, Next Voice was not a sequel to the Read More

Battleground

Crew: Director

Actors: Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Marshall Thompson, James Whitmore

Synopsis: Incoming MGM production head Dore Schary ramrodded Battleground into the studio's schedule over the virulent protests of MGM boss Louis Mayer. The result was an award-winning box-office hit, as well as the beginning of the end of Mayer's power. This dramatization of the battles of Bastogne and the Read More

Yellow Sky

Crew: Director

Actors: Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark, Robert Arthur, John Russell

Synopsis: William Wellman's westerns always seemed a little claustrophobic, but in Yellow Sky the director's technique works to the film's advantage. Outlaw leader Gregory Peck takes refuge in a frontier ghost town. The only inhabitants are elderly James Barton and his pretty granddaughter Anne Baxter. Read More

The Iron Curtain

Crew: Director

Actors: Dana Andrews, Leslie Barrie, Gene Tierney, June Havoc, Berry Kroeger, Helena Dare, Edna Best

Synopsis: Another of 20th Century-Fox's "drawn from today's headlines" dramas of the late 1940s, Behind the Iron Curtain (a.k.a. The Iron Curtain) is based on the true-life defection of Soviet Embassy code specialist Igor Gouzenko. Portrayed by Dana Andrews, Gouzenko is brought to Canada under a cloud of Read More

Magic Town

Crew: Director

Actors: E.J. Ballantine, James Stewart, Jane Wyman, Mary Currier, Julia Dean, Kent Smith, Ann Doran, Ned Sparks, Wallace Ford, Frank Fenton

Synopsis: With Robert Riskin as screenwriter, director William Wellman proved in Magic Town that it was possible to make a Frank Capra-esque picture without Capra himself at the helm. James Stewart plays Rip Smith, a cynical pollster who comes across a small American town named Grandview, which represents a Read More

Gallant Journey

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Fernando Alvarado, Conrad Binyon, Paul E. Burns, Tommy Cook

Synopsis: Producer/director William A. Wellman also co-scripted this biopic devoted to John J. Montgomery (Glenn Ford), the unsung 19th-century innovator of glider design. Montgomery's invention of a gold separator proves lucrative, but he pours its profits into financing his legal battles over patent Read More

The Story of G.I. Joe

Crew: Director

Actors: Burgess Meredith, Robert Mitchum, Freddie Steele, Chris Cunningham, Wally Cassell, Lucien Hubbard

Synopsis: The Story of G.I. Joe was based on the columns of Scripps-Howard war correspondent Ernie Pyle (Burgess Meredith). Though already past 40, Pyle insists upon marching along with an Army infantry unit during the Italian campaign. He befriends several of the soldiers, including commanding officer Lt. Read More

This Man's Navy

Crew: Director

Actors: Wallace Beery, Tom Drake, James Gleason, Jan Clayton, Selena Royle

Synopsis: Ned Trumpet (Wallace Beery), the chief pilot of a Navy blimp, is given to weaving accounts of the fighting prowess of his non-existent son. His friendship with widow Maude Weaver (Selena Royle) and her son Jess (Tom Drake) in effect sets him up with a real family. Jess enters the service and goes Read More

Buffalo Bill

Crew: Director

Actors: Joel McCrea, Maureen O'Hara, Linda Darnell, Thomas Mitchell, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: No slouch himself at rearranging the facts to make a good story, Colonel William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody would probably have enjoyed this Technicolor version of his life and times. Well played by Joel McCrea, Cody is first seen as an army Indian scout, pursuing peaceful coexistence despite the Read More

The Ox-Bow Incident

Crew: Director

Actors: Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn, Jane Darwell

Synopsis: This now-classic indictment of mob rule was a pet project of both star Henry Fonda and director William Wellman, both of whom agreed to work on lesser 20th Century-Fox projects in exchange for this film. After a hard winter on the range, cowboys Gil Carter (Fonda) and Art Croft (Harry Morgan) ride Read More

Lady of Burlesque

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Michael O'Shea, J. Edward Bromberg, Iris Adrian, Gloria Dickson, Marion Martin

Synopsis: Barbara Stanwyck shines in her second portrayal of a showgirl in less than two years (the first was in Howard Hawks' Ball of Fire in 1941). In Lady of Burlesque -- which, at times, has a Hawksian edge to the dialogue -- she portrays Dixie Daisy, a striptease artist at a Broadway theater in New Read More

Roxie Hart

Crew: Director

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, George Montgomery, Lynne Overman, Nigel Bruce

Synopsis: Based on the Ben Hecht/Charlie McArthur play Chicago, Roxie Hart is a short-but-sweet satire of highly publicized court trials. Ginger Rogers plays showgirl Roxie Hart, whose no-good husband kills a man and insists that Roxie take the blame, since juries seldom send a woman to the chair. She Read More

Thunder Birds

Crew: Director

Actors: Gene Tierney, Preston S. Foster, John Sutton, Jack Holt, Dame May Whitty

Synopsis: On a secluded base in Arizona, veteran World War One pilot Steve Britt (Preston Foster) trains flyers to fight in World War Two. One of his trainees, Englishman Peter Stackhouse (John Sutton), competes with Britt for the affections of Kay Saunders (Gene Tierney), the daughter of a local rancher. Read More

The Great Man's Lady

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Brian Donlevy, Thurston Hall, Lloyd Corrigan

Synopsis: This rambling historical drama covers 109 years in the life of one woman. Encased in convincing old-age makeup, Barbara Stanwyck reminisces on her experiences in the American West. As a young woman, she is squired by gambler Brian Donlevy, but her heart belongs to dreamer Joel McCrea. She chooses Read More

Reaching for the Sun

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Joel McCrea, Ellen Drew, Eddie Bracken, Albert Dekker, Billy Gilbert

Synopsis: Wessel Smitter's semicomic novel FOB Detroit was the source material for Reaching for the Sun. Joel McCrea plays a North Woods clam digger who orders an outboard motor for his business. Figuring he'll save shipping money by picking the motor up himself, he heads for Detroit. Here he decides to Read More

Beau Geste

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward

Synopsis: 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 Read More

The Light That Failed

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Ronald Colman, Walter Huston, Muriel Angelus, Ida Lupino, Dudley Digges

Synopsis: Based on a classic tale from Rudyard Kipling, this melodrama chronicles the desperate attempt of a painter to finish his greatest painting before he goes blind. His affliction is due to a war wound and his final project is to paint a portrait of London's most notorious prostitute. Trouble begins Read More

Men with Wings

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Ray Milland, Louise Campbell, Andy Devine, Lynne Overman

Synopsis: Brash and vigorous director William Wellman always had a place in his filmography for movies glorifying the early years of aviation -- from the start of his career (Wings), until the end (Lafayette Escadrille). But, perhaps, never has his devotion to aviation been made more vivid than in his 1938 Read More

A Star Is Born

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine

Synopsis: A Star is Born came into being when producer David O. Selznick decided to tell a "true behind-the-scenes" story of Hollywood. The truth, of course, was filtered a bit for box-office purposes, although Selznick and an army of screenwriters based much of their script on actual people and events. Janet Gaynor Read More

Nothing Sacred

Crew: Director

Actors: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly, Sig Rumann

Synopsis: "This is New York, Skyscraper Champion of the World...Where the Slickers and Know-It-Alls peddle gold bricks to each other...And where Truth, crushed to earth, rises again more phony than a glass eye..." With this jaundiced opening title, scripter Ben Hecht introduces his classic comedy Nothing Sacred Read More

The Robin Hood of El Dorado

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Warner Baxter, Ann Loring, Bruce Cabot, Margo, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Warner Baxter does a variation of his Oscar-winning "Cisco Kid" characterization in Robin Hood of El Dorado. Baxter plays the real-life Mexican bandit Joaquin Murietta, which the screenplay depicts as a South of the Border Jesse James. Murietta has turned criminal to avenge the death of his wife Read More

Small Town Girl

Crew: Director

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Robert Taylor, Binnie Barnes, Andy Devine, James Stewart

Synopsis: One Horse Town is the TV title for MGM's 1936 version Small Town Girl (the new title was bestowed to avoid confusion with the 1953 remake). Robert Taylor plays an irresponsible playboy who is arrested in a backwater town for drunken driving. While intoxicated, Taylor proposes to local girl Janet Gaynor Read More

The Call of the Wild

Crew: Director

Actors: Clark Gable, Loretta Young, Jack Oakie, Frank Conroy, Reginald Owen

Synopsis: The third screen version of Jack London's classic adventure story was also the first with sound, and it toyed with the original story a bit to add a love interest for leading man Clark Gable. Jack Thornton (Gable) is a would-be prospector who has headed to Alaska hoping to cash in on the gold Read More

The President Vanishes

Crew: Director

Actors: Janet Beecher, Paul Kelly, Peggy Conklin, Rosalind Russell

Synopsis: Based upon a novel anonymously written by Rex Stout, The President Vanishes has as its title character a peace-loving man with distinct anti-interventionist views. As the picture opens, President Stanley Craig (A.S. Byron) finds himself in a bit of a bind: he fervently believes that the United Read More

Looking for Trouble

Crew: Director

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Constance Cummings, Jack Oakie, Morgan Conway, Arline Judge

Synopsis: Joe Graham (Spencer Tracy), a troubleshooter for the telephone company, suspects that his beloved Ethel (Constance Cummings) is working for a crook. Joe and his partner Casey (Jack Oakie) investigate her boss, Dan Sutter (Morgan Conway), but they're caught by Sutter's goons and left to die in a Read More

Stingaree

Crew: Director

Actors: Irene Dunne, Richard Dix, Mary Boland, Conway Tearle, Andy Devine

Synopsis: Richard Dix plays the title-role, of a dashing highwayman and bandit in 1870's Australia, in this strangely delightful mix of swashbuckler and musical. But the real star is Irene Dunne as Hilda Bouverie, an impoverished serving girl who wants to sing. Left orphaned and homeless by the deaths of Read More

Female

Crew: Director

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Philip Faversham, Ruth Donnelly, Johnny Mack Brown

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Heroes for Sale

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Loretta Young, Aline MacMahon, Gordon Westcott, Robert H. Barrat

Synopsis: What isn't Heroes for Sale about? Within its 71-minute time frame, this film (co-written by "professional cynic" Wilson Mizner) tackles such issues as disenfranchised war veterans, misguided hero worship, drug addiction, the Depression, capitalism, labor relations and communism. Richard Barthelmess Read More

Wild Boys of the Road

Crew: Director

Actors: Frankie Darro, Dorothy Coonan, Rochelle Hudson, Anne Hovey

Synopsis: This earnest, socially-conscious road drama centers on two California teenagers who find their comfortable lives thrown into turmoil during the Great Depression. To find work for themselves, the adventurous lads sneak aboard a Chicago-bound train. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide Read More

Midnight Mary

Crew: Director

Actors: Loretta Young, Ricardo Cortez, Franchot Tone, Andy Devine, Una Merkel

Synopsis: Loaned to MGM by her home studio of Warner Bros., Loretta Young suffers her way through the title role in Midnight Mary. A good girl led astray, Mary (Young) endeavors to save the life of her boyfriend Tom (Franchot Tone) by killing the aptly named Leo the Rat (Ricardo Cortez). As her case is Read More

Central Airport

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Sally Eilers, Tom Brown, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: 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 Read More

College Coach

Crew: Director

Actors: Dick Powell, Ann Dvorak, Pat O'Brien, Arthur Byron, Lyle Talbot

Synopsis: Those who only know Pat O'Brien from his later, slightly more avuncular roles may be surprised to see him pumping out almost as much energy as his friend (and sometime co-star) James Cagney, in the lead and title role of College Coach. As James Gore, the head football coach for Calvert College, he Read More

Frisco Jenny

Crew: Director

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, Donald Cook, Louis Calhern, Hallam Cooley

Synopsis: Jenny (Ruth Chatterton) becomes pregnant by a young man who is killed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Bearing her child in secret, Jenny gives up custody to a wealthy couple. The years pass, and through the auspices of a crooked politician (Louis Calhern), Jenny becomes the number one Read More

Lilly Turner

Crew: Director

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Frank McHugh, Ruth Donnelly, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: This weepie, adapted from a play by Philip Dunning and George Abbott, is a vehicle for Ruth Chatterton as the titular Lilly. Her sufferings begin when she marries a man who later turns out to be a bigamist. She has their baby but marries another man so the child can have a father. The new husband Read More

The Conquerors

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Dix, Ann Harding, Edna May Oliver, Guy Kibbee, Julie Haydon

Synopsis: This Depression-era morale-booster looks at the ups and downs of a banking family from the 1870s to the 1930s (and borrows plentifully from the previous year's hit Cimarron, another empire-building saga that also starred Dix). Following the financial collapse of 1873, Roger Standish (Richard Dix) Read More

Love is a Racket

Crew: Director

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Ann Dvorak, Frances Dee, Lee Tracy, Lyle Talbot

Synopsis: James Cagney was originally pegged to play brash Broadway columnist Jimmy Russell in this pleasant if somewhat lightweight newspaper yarn, but when director William Wellman called "action," Douglas Fairbanks Jr. had replaced him. In love with pretty actress Mary Wodehouse (Frances Dee), Jimmy can Read More

So Big

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Dickie Moore, Bette Davis, Mae Madison

Synopsis: This second of three film versions of Edna Ferber's novel So Big stars Barbara Stanwyck as Ferber's resilient heroine Selena Dejong Peake. Widowed early in the proceedings, Chicago truck farmer Selena sacrifices everything for her son Dirk (Dickie Moore as a child, Hardie Albright as a grown-up) Read More

The Purchase Price

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Lyle Talbot, Hardie Albright, David Landau

Synopsis: Barbara Stanwyck, displayed in all her pre-Code glory, once again plays "damaged goods" in Warner Bros.' The Purchase Price. Hard-boiled nightclub singer Joan Gordon (Stanwyck) gets fed up being the kept woman of her married boss, bootlegger Ed Fields (Lyle Talbot). Fleeing New York City, she ends Read More

The Hatchet Man

Crew: Director

Actors: Loretta Young, Leslie Fenton, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Hatchet Man is a dated but fascinating film set amidst the "tong wars" in San Francisco's Chinatown. Tong hatchet man Wong Low Get (Edward G. Robinson) is required to kill his boyhood friend Sun Yet Sen (J. Carroll Naish). Sen is resigned to his fate, but extracts a promise that Wong will look Read More

Safe in Hell

Crew: Director

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Donald Cook, Ralf Harolde, Morgan Wallace, Victor Varconi

Synopsis: A young Barbara Stanwyck was considered for the starring role as the exiled call-girl in this extremely frank pre production-code drama directed by William A. Wellman from a play by Houston Branch). The role eventually went ot Dorothy Mackaill, an evocative British-born veteran adept at playing Read More

Night Nurse

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Joan Blondell, Charlotte Merriam, Charles Winninger, Clark Gable

Synopsis: William Wellman's Night Nurse survives as a potentially interesting but ultimately unsatisfying melodrama about a nurse discovering evildoings in the household where she is caring for a couple of sick children. Based on a 1930 novel by Dora Macy, Wellman's probe into medical corruption is one of Read More

The Public Enemy

Crew: Director

Actors: James Cagney, Edward Woods, Donald Cook, Joan Blondell, Jean Harlow

Synopsis: William Wellman's landmark gangster movie traces the rise and fall of prohibition-era mobster Tom Powers. We are first shown various episodes of Tom's childhood with the corrupting influences of the beer hall, pool parlor, and false friends like minor-league fence Putty Nose. As young adults, Tom (James Cagney Read More

Star Witness

Crew: Director

Actors: Walter Huston, Charles "Chic" Sale, Frances Starr, Grant Mitchell, Sally Blane

Synopsis: Star Witness starts out as a homey family comedy and develops into a rather gutsy thriller. Chic Sale plays a cantankerous Civil War veteran who, while visiting his family, witnesses a gangland shooting. The rest of the family also gets a good look at the gang boss (Ralph Ince) and everyone agrees Read More

Other Men's Women

Crew: Director

Actors: Grant Withers, Mary Astor, Regis Toomey, James Cagney, Fred Kohler, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: William A. Wellman's triangle melodrama "The Steel Highway" -- a title referring to the film's railroad setting -- was changed to the more suggestive Other Men's Women shortly before it's April 19, 1931 New York premiere. Grant Withers and Regis Toomey played lifelong friends and co-workers in Read More

Dangerous Paradise

Crew: Director

Actors: Nancy Carroll, Richard Arlen, Warner Oland, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Francis McDonald

Synopsis: Joseph Conrad's novel Victory inspired some of this South Sea drama. Alma (Nancy Carroll), a violinist hired to play at an island resort, is pressured to make herself available to its male visitors. She flees and hides in a skiff belonging to the reclusive Heyst (Richard Arlen), who is said to Read More

Maybe It's Love

Crew: Director

Actors: Joan Bennett, Joe E. Brown, James Hall, Laura Lee, Anders Randolf

Synopsis: Maybe It's Love is one of the many college football musicals which bred like minks in the early talkie era. A very young Joan Bennett tops the cast as Nan Sheffield, the daughter of a college president (George Irving). The nominal leading man is Tommy Nelson (James Hall), the black-sheep son of a Read More

Young Eagles

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Jean Arthur, Paul Lukas, Stuart Erwin, Frank Ross

Synopsis: Aerial photography highlights this early sound actioner, set during World War I. Lt. Robert Banks (Charles "Buddy" Rogers), an American flier on leave in Paris, meets fellow American Mary Gordon (Jean Arthur) and the two fall in love. In combat, Banks makes a captive of Von Baden (Paul Lukas), the Read More

The Man I Love

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Arlen, Mary Brian, Olga Baclanova, Leslie Fenton, Pat O'Malley

Synopsis: Bearing no relation to the popular torch song of the same name, The Man I Love is a prizefight picture, courtesy of Paramount production exec David O. Selznick. Richard Arlen stars as Dum-Dum Brooks, a tank-town boxer who journeys to New York in hopes of cracking the Big Time. Along for the ride Read More

Woman Trap

Crew: Director

Actors: Hal Skelly, Chester Morris, Evelyn Brent, William B. Davidson, Effie Ellsler

Synopsis: Although Broadway star Hal Skelly never quite made it in films, it wasn't for lack of trying. In Woman Trap, Skelly is cast against type as hard-bitten police sergeant Dan Malone, whose mission in life is to rid his community of gangsters. The revelation that Dan's own brother Ray (Chester Morris) Read More

Chinatown Nights

Crew: Director

Actors: Wallace Beery, Florence Vidor, Warner Oland, Jack McHugh, Jack Oakie

Synopsis: Despite the creative input of producer David O. Selznick and director William A. Wellman, Chinatown Nights was just so much chop suey. In her first (and last) talking-picture appearance, silent screen queen Florence Vidor plays Joan Fry, a San Francisco socialite who ruins her reputation when she Read More

Beggars of Life

Crew: Director

Actors: Wallace Beery, Louise Brooks, Richard Arlen, Blue Washington, H.A. Morgan

Synopsis: Wallace Beery appeared in this silent film with intertitles, a dark drama of hobo life. Jim (Richard Arlen), a wanderer, comes upon young Nancy (Louise Brooks), who has just killed the guardian who was trying to rape her. Disguised as a boy, she takes off with Jim and rides the rails to a hobo Read More

Legion of the Condemned

Crew: Director

Actors: Fay Wray, Gary Cooper, Barry Norton, Lane Chandler

Synopsis: Director William Wellman's follow-up to Wings was based in part on his own WWI experiences with the Lafayette Flying Corps. Four young men from various walks of life sign up for the French escadrille known as "The Legion of the Condemned." In essence, all four are running away -- from the law Read More

Ladies of the Mob

Crew: Director

Actors: Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, Helen Lynch, Carl Gerard

Synopsis: The principal lady in Ladies of the Mob is jazz-baby Clara Bow. After her father is executed, Bow goes to heck in a handbasket, consorting with the riffiest raff of the underworld riff-raff. Upon falling in love with her partner in crime Richard Arlen, Bow vows to set him on the straight and Read More

Wings

Crew: Director

Actors: Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Richard Arlen, Jobyna Ralston, Gary Cooper

Synopsis: Wings, the first feature film to win an Academy Award, tends to disappoint a little when seen today. Too much time is afforded the wheezy old plotline about two World War I aviators (Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen) in love with the same woman (Jobyna Ralston), while the comedy relief of El Brendel is Read More

You Never Know Women

Crew: Director

Actors: Florence Vidor, Clive Brook, Lowell Sherman, El Brendel, Roy Stewart

Synopsis: After making one unsuccessful film (The Cat's Pajamas), director William Wellman was in danger of being fired by his new employers at Paramount. He made a rousing comeback with You Never Know Women. Written by the Hungarian-born Ernest Vajda, it involves a Russian theatrical troupe of acrobats Read More

Boob

Crew: Director

Actors: Gertrude Olmstead, George K. Arthur, Joan Crawford, Charlie Murray, Antonio D'Algy

Synopsis: 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 Read More

The Cat's Pajamas

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Betty Bronson, Ricardo Cortez, Theodore Roberts, Arlette Marchal

Synopsis: One of the unfortunately "lost" films of silent-screen ingenue Betty Bronson, The Cat's Pajamas casts Bronson as a naïve seamstress. Egotistical opera star Ricardo Cortez, tired of being besieged by his doting female fans, marries Bronson so that he'll be safe from his public. Naturally, it's Read More

When Husbands Flirt

Crew: Director

Actors: Forrest Stanley, Maude Wayne, Ethel Wales, Dorothy Revier

Synopsis: This early directorial effort by William Wellman focuses on two married couples: Violet and Henry Gilbert (Dorothy Revier, Forrest Stanley) and Violet's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Belcher (Tom Ricketts, Ethel Wales). The Gilberts are newlyweds, while the Belchers have been spliced for years. When Mr. Read More

Circus Cowboy

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles "Buck" Jones

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Not a Drum Was Heard

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles "Buck" Jones, Betty Bouton, Frank Campeau, Rhody Hathaway, Al Fremont

Synopsis: This is a rather confusing silent Western melodrama in which Jack Mills (Buck Jones) comes to the aid of a friend, Bud Loupel (William Scott), who has robbed a bank to keep up his house payments. Idiotically, Jack helps his friend by holding up the very same bank, pretending to steal the money his Read More

Vagabond Trail

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Coleman, George H. Reed, Charles "Buck" Jones, Marian Nixon, Harry Lonsdale

Synopsis: Searching for his wayward brother, saddle tramp Donnegan (Buck Jones) gets in trouble with a bully and is thrown off a freight train in this average Buck Jones oater. Unconscious, the hero is picked up by lovely Lou Macon (Marian Nixon) and her father (Harry Lonsdale), both of whom are on their Read More

Man Who Won

Crew: Director

Actors: Ralph Cloninger, Lloyd Whitlock, Dustin Farnum

Synopsis: Although this was one of William Wellman's early directorial efforts, his talent still shows through in this Western programmer. Dustin Farnum stars as Bill, a gambler, whose friend Scipio (Ralph Cloninger) goes in search of his wife Jessie (Jacqueline Gadsden). Jessie, fed up with her life of Read More

Second Hand Love

Crew: Director

Actors: Frank Weed, Ruth Dwyer, Charles "Buck" Jones, Charles Coleman, Harvey Clark

Synopsis: This stereotypical rural tale wastes the talents of Charles "Buck" Jones, who was far better off in Westerns, where he would eventually earn his fame. Here he is Andy Hanks, an itinerant fix-it man who comes to town with his horse and dog as his only pals. He falls in love with Angela Trent (Ruth Read More

Big Dan

Crew: Director

Actors: Eileen O'Malley, Buck Jones, Lydia Yeamans Titus, Charles Coleman

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Cupid's Fireman

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles "Buck" Jones, Marian Nixon, Brooks Benedict, Eileen O'Malley, Al Fremont

Synopsis: 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 Read More

Twins of Suffering Creek

Crew: Director

Actors: William Russell

Synopsis: William Russell did his best work in Westerns, and here he plays saloon owner Bill Lark, who is given three days to live when he ends up the loser in a dispute with villain Jim Pemberton (Henry J. Herbert). Lark figures that he might as well do some good with the time he has left and tends to the Read More

The Knickerbocker Buckaroo

Synopsis: Teddy Drake (Douglas Fairbanks) is an idle clubman who wakes up to the fact that he's incredibly selfish. He wants to see what he's really made of, so he heads out West. While on the train, he changes clothes with Lopez (Albert McQuarrie), who claims he wants to go see his sick mother. Perhaps Read More

Evangeline

Synopsis: According to her autobiography, Dark Lady of the Silents, film star Miriam Cooper brought the idea of filming Longfellow's poem to her then-husband, director Raoul Walsh. She also claims that she originally had little desire to play the title character -- but of course, she wound up in the lead Read More