The terrific William Wellman directed film,
Beggars of Life, starring Louise Brooks, Wallace Beery and Richard Arlen, will be shown at the
Film Forum in New York City on Monday, May 4th. And what's more, William Wellman, Jr (son of director) will introduce his father’s 1928 film. Copies of Wellman’s new book
Wild Bill Wellman: Hollywood Rebel will be on sale at the Film Forum concession, with a book signing to follow the screening. Start time is 7:50 pm.
Who knows the subtle link between Beggars of Life and the film depicted on the cover of William Wellman Jr.'s new book?
Here is the publisher description of Wellman's new book, coming from Pantheon on April 7, 2015: "The extraordinary life−the first—of the legendary, undercelebrated
Hollywood director known in his day as "Wild Bill" (and he was!)
Wellman, whose 82 movies—many of them iconic, many of them sharp, cold,
brutal, others poetic, moving—all of them a lesson in close-up
art—ranged from adventure and gangster pictures to comedies, aviation,
romance, westerns, and searing social dramas: His pioneering, daring
picture-making forever changed Hollywood and the way movies were made.
Now,
William Wellman, Jr., drawing on his father's unpublished letters,
diaries, notes, and unfinished memoir, gives us the first full portrait
of the man—the son, the husband, the father, director, artist.
Wellman
directed Hollywood's biggest stars during three decades, including Gary
Cooper, Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, John
Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Clint Eastwood, Robert Mitchum. He made pictures
with producers like Darryl Zanuck, Nunnally Johnson, David O. Selznick,
Howard Hughes among them . . .
David O. Selznick called him,
"One of the motion pictures' greatest craftsmen." Robert Redford
described him as, "Feisty, independent, self-taught, and self-made. He
stood his ground and fought his battles for artistic integrity, never
wavering, always clear in his film sense . . . He has left a great gift
in the annals of film achievement."
Among Wellman's iconic pictures: the pioneering WWI epic,
Wings (winner of the first Academy Award for best picture);
Public Enemy (the toughest gangster picture of them all);
Nothing Sacred (the classic social screwball comedy satire); the original
A Star is Born (Wellman co-wrote and directed it);
Beggars of Life; The Call of the Wild; Beau Geste; The High and the Mighty . . . and many more of equal distinction and greatness."
