Word: wellman
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Other mortal weaknesses: some of the picture's homely details of lower middle-class life are theatrical and patronizing; William Wellman's uneven direction is inclined to be sticky; Actor Whitmore mars an otherwise good performance with a few grotesque excesses. As unmixed blessings, Next Voice offers a fine, attractive piece of well-balanced acting by Nancy Davis and the most refreshingly frank, unaffected view of pregnancy yet shown by Hollywood. Vulnerable as it is, the movie is largely successful, on its own terms: a low common denominator of emotional appeal...
Director William Wellman, now with MGM, grimly recalls a hunting trip with Zanuck in British Columbia: "You had to shake the porcupines out of the trees at night. It snowed. We had to break trail for the horses. We were snowbound for three days. Zanuck chased a grizzly for 30 hours, came back with a sprained ankle. We made 20 separate fords. We lost the horse carrying our medicine. I got blood poisoning. It was the ruggedest, damndest trip you've ever seen. But d'you know what? Zanuck loved...
Those who graduated in March are: James Keeley Brown '50; Richard Wellman Brown '50; Joseph William Gibson '49; Donald Heyneman '46; Robert Errant Kohn '49; Hilton James Landry '50; and Kenneth Melvin Gregory Lewan...
...colorful routine that is tiresomely underlined every time the soldier is seen: Private Douglas Fowley loses or clicks his store-bought teeth; ex-Editor John Hodiak mourns over the fact that his wife in Sedalia knows more about the battle than he does. But Director William Wellman threads his way through these overworked signposts of character and makes each of the "Screaming Eagles" a rounded, tough human being. Ruthlessly demanding authentic gesture and movement from his actors, Wellman even gets it from that professional of boyish overstatement, Van Johnson...
Most of the credit, probably goes to director William Wellman, for the co-ordination of all the effects that went towards making the sombre atmosphere of guilty killing was letter perfect: The unshaven faces, the drabness of the set at the picture's outset, and the reflection in each character's attitude of the weakness that found such ready companionship in the lynching mob. The music, too, served its purpose--not perhaps so well as in such a western as "Duel in the Sun"--but the dull repitition of a prairie tune dampened any tendencies toward melodrama...