---
name: "Sam Wood"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/sam-wood"
roles: ["Director"]
born: "10 July 1883"
died: "22 September 1949"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 6
average_fi1m_score: 70
average_as: "director"
average_over: 6
updated: "2026-09-20T00:54:45.889823+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Sam Wood

Director. Born 10 July 1883 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Died 22 September 1949.

## Details

- **Work:** Director
- **Born:** 10 July 1883, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- **Died:** 22 September 1949
- **Active:** 1939–1943
- **Also known as:** Сэм Вуд, 샘 우드, Samuel Grosvenor Wood
- **Frequently works with:** [Gary Cooper](https://film.one/person/gary-cooper.md)
- **Academy Awards:** 3 Oscar nominations
- **Average Fi1m score:** 70, as director, over 6 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1930s 82 (1), 1940s 68 (5)
- **Score spread:** 1 at 80+, 4 at 60–79, 1 under 60
- **Genres:** Drama 6, Romance 5, Adventure 1, Family 1, History 1, Mystery 1
- **Screen time:** 12 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $21m across 2 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Wood, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q457269, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0939992/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/10790

## Streaming the US now

- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Our Town*](https://film.one/film/our-town.md) (72)
- **Pluto TV:** [*The Pride of the Yankees*](https://film.one/film/the-pride-of-the-yankees.md) (71)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Sam Wood

> Sam Wood finished his pictures on time and under budget, kept his actors from over-acting and aimed at clarity. *Goodbye, Mr. Chips* shows both the virtue of that and its limit: a fine Robert Donat inside a film that does not vary its tempo.

An old man dozes by the fire in a landlady's sitting room, kept in by a cold on the first day of term, and the school across the road goes on without him. Sam Wood opens *Goodbye, Mr. Chips* (1939) there, at the far end, and lets Robert Donat do the remembering. That is Wood in one scene: control the script, the camera and the performance, keep it clear, and permit no scenery chewing.

He came to it the long way. A real estate broker first, then an actor, then an assistant to Cecil B. DeMille from 1915, he directed his first features at Paramount in 1920 with stars such as Gloria Swanson and Wallace Reid. From 1927 to 1939 he was under contract at MGM, turning out routine pictures and, in the middle of them, *A Night at the Opera* (1935) and *A Day at the Races* (1937) for the Marx Brothers. Freelance from 1939, he made the run of dramas he is remembered for, *Kitty Foyle* (1940), *Kings Row* (1942), *The Pride of the Yankees* (1942) and *For Whom the Bell Tolls* (1943), and died in 1949. Studio people valued him because he finished on time. Critics have tended to call him competent and reliable, which is not an insult but is not quite praise either.

What he could do was direct actors. He talked to them and shot again rather than moving them about, and he would not permit over-acting. You can see the result in *Goodbye, Mr. Chips*, where Donat ages from a nervous young man losing his first class to a shuffling institution, and the performance is the reason to see the film. We were moved by that old man more than the tidy film around him had prepared us for, and what did it was Donat's shuffle, and the fact that Wood, true to his rule, never lets him overplay it. Greer Garson, in her first film, gets the same treatment and plays Kathy briskly enough to stop the part being a wish.

What he could not do, or would not, was change gear. The Tyrol and Vienna stretch of *Chips* runs long, with a ballroom waltz he plainly could not bear to shorten, and late on the film repeats itself: another tea, another dissolve, and we had spotted the pattern before it stopped. The same complaint, that the romance swallows everything else, has been made about *For Whom the Bell Tolls*, and we suspect it is the same fault. He is versatile in subject, from Marx Brothers farce to literary adaptation to a baseball life, but the tempo is the tempo.

His own rule, he said, was "If it isn't too good, keep it moving." See *Goodbye, Mr. Chips* for Donat, and notice that the one place Wood breaks his own rule is the one place the film sags.

## Biography

Sam Wood was an American film director and producer. Born Samuel Grosvenor Wood on 10 July 1883 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he began his career as an actor before working as an assistant director to Cecil B. DeMille. He directed his first films in the late 1910s and went on to direct more than seventy pictures over three decades.

Wood is credited as director on *A Night at the Opera* (1935), *A Day at the Races* (1937), *Goodbye, Mr. Chips* (1939), *Kitty Foyle* (1940), *The Pride of the Yankees* (1942), *Kings Row* (1942) and *For Whom the Bell Tolls* (1943). He received Academy Award nominations for best director for *Goodbye, Mr. Chips*, *Kitty Foyle* and *Kings Row*. He also produced several of his later films.

Wood helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals in 1944 and served as its first president. He died of a heart attack on 22 September 1949 in Los Angeles.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, britannica.com, projects.latimes.com.*

## On Fi1m (6)

- *For Whom the Bell Tolls* (1943), Fi1m 58, Producer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/for-whom-the-bell-tolls.md)
- *Kings Row* (1942), Fi1m 70, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/kings-row.md)
- *The Pride of the Yankees* (1942), Fi1m 71, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/the-pride-of-the-yankees.md)
- *Kitty Foyle* (1940), Fi1m 70, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/kitty-foyle.md)
- *Our Town* (1940), Fi1m 72, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/our-town.md)
- *Goodbye, Mr. Chips* (1939), Fi1m 82, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/goodbye-mr-chips.md)

## Complete filmography (81)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *That's Entertainment, Part II* (1976), Thanks
- *Ambush* (1950), Director, Producer
- *The Stratton Story* (1949), Director
- *Command Decision* (1948), Director
- *Ivy* (1947), Director, Executive Producer
- *Heartbeat* (1946), Director
- *Saratoga Trunk* (1945), Director
- *Guest Wife* (1945), Director
- *Casanova Brown* (1944), Director
- *For Whom the Bell Tolls* (1943), Director, Producer — Fi1m 58, [page](https://film.one/film/for-whom-the-bell-tolls.md)
- *The Pride of the Yankees* (1942), Director — Fi1m 71, [page](https://film.one/film/the-pride-of-the-yankees.md)
- *Kings Row* (1942), Director — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/kings-row.md)
- *The Devil and Miss Jones* (1941), Director
- *Kitty Foyle* (1940), Director — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/film/kitty-foyle.md)
- *Rangers of Fortune* (1940), Director
- *Our Town* (1940), Director — Fi1m 72, [page](https://film.one/film/our-town.md)
- *Raffles* (1939), Director
- *Goodbye, Mr. Chips* (1939), Director — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/goodbye-mr-chips.md)
- *Stablemates* (1938), Director
- *Lord Jeff* (1938), Director, Producer
- *Navy Blue and Gold* (1937), Director, Producer
- *Madame X* (1937), Director
- *A Day at the Races* (1937), Director, Producer
- *The Unguarded Hour* (1936), Director
- *Whipsaw* (1935), Director, Producer
- *A Night at the Opera* (1935), Director
- *Rendezvous* (1935), Director
- *Let 'em Have It* (1935), Director
- *Stamboul Quest* (1934), Director, Producer
- *Hollywood Party* (1934), Director
- *Christopher Bean* (1933), Director
- *Hold Your Man* (1933), Director, Producer
- *The Barbarian* (1933), Director, Producer, Music
- *Prosperity* (1932), Director, Producer
- *Huddle* (1932), Director, Producer
- *New Adventures of Get Rich Quick Wallingford* (1931), Director
- *The Man in Possession* (1931), Director, Producer
- *A Tailor-Made Man* (1931), Director, Producer
- *Paid* (1930), Director
- *Way for a Sailor* (1930), Director, Producer
- *The Sins of the Children* (1930), Director, Producer
- *The Girl Said No* (1930), Director
- *They Learned About Women* (1930), Director
- *It's a Great Life* (1929), Director
- *So This Is College* (1929), Director, Producer
- *Telling the World* (1928), Director
- *The Latest from Paris* (1928), Director
- *The Fair Co-Ed* (1927), Director
- *A Racing Romeo* (1927), Director
- *Rookies* (1927), Director
- *One Minute to Play* (1926), Director
- *Fascinating Youth* (1926), Director
- *The Re-Creation of Brian Kent* (1925), Director
- *The Mine with the Iron Door* (1924), Director
- *The Female* (1924), Director
- *Bluff* (1924), Director
- *The Next Corner* (1924), Director
- *His Children's Children* (1923), Director
- *Bluebeard's 8th Wife* (1923), Director
- *Prodigal Daughters* (1923), Director
- *My American Wife* (1922), Director
- *The Impossible Mrs. Bellew* (1922), Director
- *Beyond the Rocks* (1922), Director
- *Her Gilded Cage* (1922), Director
- *Her Husband’s Trademark* (1922), Director
- *Don't Tell Everything* (1921), Director
- *Under the Lash* (1921), Director
- *The Great Moment* (1921), Director
- *Peck's Bad Boy* (1921), Director, Adaptation
- *The Outside Woman* (1921), Director
- *The Snob* (1921), Director
- *Her Beloved Villain* (1920), Director
- *Her First Elopement* (1920), Director
- *A City Sparrow* (1920), Director
- *What's Your Hurry?* (1920), Director
- *Sick Abed* (1920), Director
- *Why Change Your Wife?* (1920), Assistant Director
- *The Dancin' Fool* (1920), Director
- *Excuse My Dust* (1920), Director
- *Double Speed* (1920), Director
- *The Little American* (1917), as Wounded Soldier (uncredited)

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 3 nominated

- 1943: Best Director (nominated), for *Kings Row*
- 1941: Best Director (nominated), for *Kitty Foyle*
- 1940: Best Director (nominated), for *Goodbye, Mr. Chips*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/sam-wood