OUR NEW SERIAL —And The Man Who Wrote It

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 32, 20 January 1939, Page 30

OUR NEW SERIAL —And The Man Who Wrote It

GONTINUING its policy of giving readers serial stories of exceptional quality, the "Record" has secured the rights to the serialisation of "Men With Wings," the story of the Paramount: Technicolor film of the same name, starring Fred: MacMurray, Ray Milland and Louise Campbell. The first instalment is published today. "Men With Wings" is the dramatised story of aviation from its daring beginnings to the present day. It has. thrills ‘in it, this. stery!-crashing planes, battles: in the sky, death-defying tests by flying fools, parachute jumps: and trans-. ‘atlantic flights! And’ more than that-through it sweeps the living, human story of two: boys and a girl whose romance is the romance of aviation itself. Wiliam Augustus ("Wild Bill’) Wellman, who directed the forthcoming picture, and also wrote this story, is a man-who knows: what-he is writing about.. A Lafayette Flying Corps pilot during the war,: he launched: aviation as a major cinema subject with "Wings" in 1927. After the war he went to Hollywood, persuaded Douglas Fairbanks to give him a job acting in. "The Knickerbocker Buckaroo." After William Wellman took one good look at himself on the screen he decided te was no actor, and became a messenger boy for Samuel Goldwyn. When General Pershing was being shown around the lot one day he spied Wellman, whom he had known when Wellman was famed for his trick of flying low over German towns and firing his machine gun at church bells. Said Pershing: "Why, Bill, you old son of a gun, how are you?" Next day Wellman was made an assistant director.