A Short Time for Insanity: An Autobiography

The man who made such successful motion pictures as 'Wings,' 'The Public Enemy', 'A Star is Born,' 'Beau Geste,' 'Battleground,' and 'The High and the Mighty,' and also made such flops as 'The Boob' and 'Stingaree', could not be expected to write a conventional autobiography. What it is, is a piece of insanity.

From the perspective of a hospital bed, through a drug-induced haze, Wellman's memory makes connections between events in life that his rational mind would never perceive...between a child's first hunting trip and a drunken weekend with Spencer Tracy, between working with Clark Gable and a recalcitrant St. Bernard in 'Call of the Wild' and working with Ernie Pyle and real fighting troops in 'GI Joe,' and between the friendship and courage and sorrow of flying in the Lafayette Escadrille and everything that ever happened in the rest of his life.

What it is, is a beautiful insight into the mind of a man who would have been called a genius if there'd been anybody willing to risk a black eye by calling him that. What it is, is a good and moving and funny and warm and honest...and a little crazy. Exactly like William Wellman.

In the halcyon days of Hollywood, Bill Wellman was known as a difficult man to get to know...hard and tough and more than a little fearsome. Still just as tough and no easier to know, 'A Short Time for Insanity,' at least makes him an easy man to love.