William Wellman – Stream On Demand

Barbara Stanwyck is a ‘Lady of Burlesque’ on Prime Video and on MGM+

!Featured, Academy Award nominee, Amazon Prime Video, based on a novel, Classic Movie, Comedy, DVD, Hollywood Classic, MGM+, movies about theater, SVOD 08/04/2023 Sean Axmaker

William Wellman directs this surprisingly racy 1943 frilm, a lighthearted murder mystery set backstage as a second-rate burlesque theater.

James Cagney and Jean Harlow star in the gangster classic by William Wellman

‘The Public Enemy’ – James Cagney is the original big screen gangster on Prime Video

!Featured, Academy Award nominee, Action, Amazon Prime Video, Blu-ray, Classic Movie, Cult Movies, DVD, Essential Viewing, gangsters, Hollywood Classic, National Film Registry, pre-code, SVOD 07/18/2023 Sean Axmaker

Cagney is the most magnificent of the new breed of machine gun-toting anti-hero that exploded in the gangster film genre of early sound cinema.

Leaving soon: ‘Safe in Hell’ – Dorothy Mackaill takes refuge on HBO Max

!Featured, based on a play, Blu-ray, Classic Movie, Cult Movies, drama, DVD, Hollywood Classic, Max, pre-code, SVOD 05/21/2023 Sean Axmaker

William Wellman directs this snappy pre-code drama set in a sleazy backwater where the dregs of civilization hide out and the local law is even more corrupt than the crooks.

Charles 'Buddy' Rogers and Clara Bow in Wings

‘Wings’ – the first Best Picture on free on Kanopy

!Featured, Academy Award, Blu-ray, Classic Movie, DVD, Essential Viewing, Free, Hollywood Classic, Kanopy, National Film Registry, silent film, SVOD, war 09/28/2022 Sean Axmaker

This World War I action spectacle from director William Wellman was the most expensive Hollywood movie ever made in its day and wowed audiences with its spectacular aerial footage.

Gary Cooper is ‘Beau Geste’ on Peacock

!Featured, Academy Award nominee, adventure, based on a novel, Blu-ray, Classic Movie, DVD, family friendly, Have You Seen...?, Hollywood Classic, literary adaptation, Peacock, SVOD 09/02/2020 Sean Axmaker

Golden-age Hollywood adventures don’t come more rousing than Beau Geste (1939). Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston are the boisterous Geste brothers, orphans raised by a society lady as gentlemen with a sense of playful camaraderie and undaunted chivalry. Their sense of honor and sacrifice inspires all three of them take the blame for […]

Louise Brooks and Richard Arlen star in the hobo drama by William Wellman

Silents Please! – ‘Beggars of Life’ with Louise Brooks, ‘Varieté’ from Germany, and more

Blu-ray, DVD, Kino Lorber, Olive, silent film 09/10/2017 Sean Axmaker 2 Comments

Catching up on some of the silent films released to Blu-ray and DVD in the past months… Beggars of Life (Kino Lorber) William Wellman was one of the most versatile directors of his day, making everything from comedies and musicals to gritty dramas and war movies, and his World War I epic Wings (1927) won […]

John Wayne stars in the aviation drama classic directed by William Wellman

John Wayne pilots ‘The High and the Mighty’ on SVOD and DVD

!Featured, Academy Award, adventure, based on a novel, Blu-ray, Classic Movie, drama, DVD, Hollywood Classic, SVOD 06/03/2015 Sean Axmaker 2 Comments

The High and the Mighty was the biggest hit of 1954 and nominated for six Academy Awards (it won for Dmitri Tiomkin’s memorable score). Seen today, this lavish aviation drama falls squarely between Stagecoach and Airport, a large ensemble drama about a mechanical crisis on a Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight where every passenger has a story […]