Since writing about Heroes for Sale last month, I've been revisiting—and in some cases, discovering—various films by director William A. Wellman, an eccentric (and, by his own admission, inconsistent) filmmaker who helmed at least a few dozen worthwhile films in the studio era. Today Wellman may be best known for his stories of macho types in conflict—Wings (1927), The Public Enemy (1931), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), The Story of G.I. Joe (1945)—but he also excelled in stories about women, bringing to them the same toughness and skepticism he displayed in all his work.…
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