They called him Wild Bill Wellman. He could be a fierce man with a fiery temper, but as a director, Wellman focused his energy to create some of Hollywood’s hardest hitting dramas. He earned his nickname during World War I when he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. Wellman proved his bravery as a fighter pilot until he was shot down by enemy artillery. Returning to civilian life, Wild Bill still craved excitement and adventure so he took a job barnstorming as a pilot in a travelling air circus. Whether by accident or design, Wellman brought his Spatt aircraft to an emergency landing on Douglas Fairbanks’s polo field during a party. The young flyer emerged in uniform fully decorated with medals. Fairbanks brought the daredevil lad to the studio and together they appeared in The Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919). 
After appearing in a few more films, Wellman decided that didn’t like acting; he found a job as a messenger boy and began working up the studio ranks. By 1923, Wellman was directing male-oriented films such as Big Dan (1923), a boxing picture, and The Vagabond Trail (1924), a sagebrush soap opera. Wellman immersed himself in the world of filmmaking with typical enthusiasm winning the respect of his peers. When Paramount planned a grand WWI aviation epic, Wellman was the man for the job—not only had he lived the life of a fighter pilot, he was well-prepared to command the crew of cameramen and special effects pilots. Wings (1927) went on to win the first-ever Academy Award for Best Picture. As tough as Cagney might was, Wellman introduced a female counterpart to The Public Enemy in Safe in Hell (1931). Angie’s a hooker who believes she killed a man. With the help of a lover she flees to a Central American port of call. Subsisting in this lawless interzone, Angie rubs shoulders with murderers, rapists, thieves and other assorted scum. Safe in Hell was made before the Hayes censorship codes were fully enforced, and Wellman revels in the overt sexual menace. Sexual overtones were again presented unambiguously in Night Nurse (1931) featuring Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Blondell. Gangland was the focus in many of Wellman’s films. In The Star Witness (1931), a family seeks asylum after seeing a slaying. The Purchase Price (1932) follows a night club singer who hopes to escape her fate as a mobster’s kept woman. The Hatchet Man (1932) is set amidst the Tong War in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Wellman was never known for a particular style like Hitchcock or Welles; instead he helped define the type of film Warner Bros. studio became best known for. Sex and violence filled these gritty black and white social dramas. Whether the crimson you imagined seeing on the screen was oozing from a fresh gunshot wound or slathered on a femme fatale’s pouty lipstick, Wellman’s work in the 1930s was black and white and red all over. 
Wild Bill Wellman brought a realistic vision of warfare to the screen in films such as Battleground (1949). A veteran of combat himself, Wellman found that the backlots of Hollywood could be just as brutal as the frontlines of battle. With the help of producer David O. Selznick, Wellman wrote a story behind-the-scenes story of the often nightmarish Dream Factory. A Star is Born (1937) tells the tale of a small town girl named Esther Blodgett (Janet Gaynor) who leaves home to seek her fortune in Hollywood. Her luck changes when she attracts the attention of Norman Maine (Fredric March), a successful film star. Maine marries Blodgett and renames her Vicki Lester; but as her star rises, his plummets. His pitiful state is made clear when Vicki accepts an Oscar and Norman shows up drunk and ornery. In the film’s famous finale, Norman disappears into the Pacific Ocean, a victim of the star machine. A Star is Born might have been based on a true-life tragedy. John Bowers was a star of silent films that married Marguerite De La Motte. After the advent of sound, Bowers could only find work at poverty row studios. After a final appearance at a party, Bowers committed suicide by drowning himself in the ocean in 1936—the year before A Star is Born was released. Whether or not Wellman had this incident in mind, his film explores the brutal world of entertainment with lush Technicolor tones. Hollywood loved the horrific inside story and the film was nominated for 10 competitive Academy Awards. Wellman took home an Oscar for Best Original Story and left a greater legacy: A Star is Born was remade two more times, in 1954 with Judy Garland and James Mason and 1976 with Barbra Streisand and Kris Krisofferson. The film told the timeless story about the price of fame. Wellman understood the power of stardom. On the set of The Public Enemy, he found a bit player with intense charisma. Warner Bros. had cast a contract actor named Edward Woods as the lead, Wellman replaced him with the extra—and James Cagney was born. Two years later, Wellman cast another actor hanging around the studio in his football drama College Coach (1933)—this was John Wayne six years before Stagecoach (1939). A decade earlier another young actor featured in Wings made an impression on audiences—Gary Cooper. Wellman recognized the value of playing a memorable character—and he crafted himself into a unforgettable larger-than-life director—this is the legend of Wild Bill Wellman. list of films! |
