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William "Wild Bill" Wellman was not Paramount Pictures' first
choice to direct the World War I epic Wings (1927), but as a former
aviator and war hero, he was the right choice. Despite months
waging epic battles of his own with studio executives, "Wild Bill"
managed to finish the big-budget war saga by inventing many of the
techniques still used to film aerial battle scenes. The film,
starring Clara Bow, broke box office records and earned its studio
the first Academy Award for Best Picture. Considered by many to be
the last great film of the silent era, Wings has been cited as a
major influence on such directors as Martin Scorsese and Robert
Redford. Its director, who went on to direct the likes of John
Wayne, James Cagney, and Gary Cooper, later earned an Oscar for
writing one of Hollywood's most loved (and often remade) films, A
Star is Born. In this biography, the director's son, William
Wellman Jr., reveals the war hero, family man, occasional
prankster, and underestimated visionary who changed Hollywood
forever. Augmented with personal correspondence from Wellman's own
World War I tour of duty as a fighter pilot, on-set photographs
from Wings and other classic Hollywood films, and anecdotes from
the back lots of the early studio system, this unique work traces
the way in which the first Best Picture's director used his own war
experience to bring a war epic to the screen. The versatile
director also excelled at comedies such as Nothing Sacred (1937),
and had a lasting influence on the gangster genre with The Public
Enemy (1931), starring James Cagney. With the recent release of
Wellman's later aviation classics, Island in the Sky (1953) and The
High and the Mighty (1954), bothstarring John Wayne, Wellman is
gaining renewed attention and appreciation from a new generation of
film enthusiasts. The book ends with a detailed Filmography of more
than 75 classic films directed by Wellman.
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