Paramount, "perhaps as a sign of displeasure" obliged Wood by demoting him to their subsidiary movie unit, Realart, a venue for the production of low-budget "routine programme pictures" that offered little in the way of substance.

Paramount's appreciation for Wood's "fast, efficient" delivery of film products and his excellent rapport with his cast and crew landed him the honor of directing their recently acquired actor Gloria Swanson in her first starring vehicle, The Great Moment (1921).

[13][14] With the popular success of The Great Moment, co-starring Milton Sills (in one scandalous scene, he sucks rattlesnake venom from Swanson's chest) Paramount proceeded to finance nine more Swanson-Wood collaborations over the next two years, beginning with Under the Lash (1921) and finishing with Bluebeard's 8th Wife (1923).

Production manager Joseph P. Kennedy had famous sports hero "Red" Grange under contract and Wood, a gridiron enthusiast, welcomed the opportunity to deliver a compelling football story, One Minute to Play (1926).

[24] Wood's first two assignments for M-G-M, Rookies, with Karl Dane and George K. Arthur, and The Fair Co-Ed with Marion Davies were comedies, both made in 1927, earning him a long-term contract with the studio for whom he would almost exclusively make films for over ten years.

[25] Wood proceeded to bring his signature speed and efficiency to M-G-M, directing their top stars and supplied with screenplays "of the slimmest material": Norma Shearer in The Latest from Paris (1928), William Haines in Telling the World (1928), the Duncan Sisters (1929) in It's a Great Life and in his first sound film in 1929, introduced actor Robert Montgomery.

Wood remade The Barbarian with emerging film star Myrna Loy as the object of Novarro's affection, who steals her from fiancé Reginald Denny in this cinematic ally "attractive minor package".

[33] A former star in stage and Vaudeville, the 62-year-old Marie Dressler and co-star Wallace Beery scored a huge financial success for M-G-M, with the 1930 Min and Bill, directed by George Hill, earning her an Academy Award for Best Actress.

[35] The assignment, however, was a promotion for Wood, providing him with the opportunity to make a crime-romance that is "sentimental, cheeky, wise-cracking" and as always "swiftly paced" and featuring two of M-G-M's top stars of the period, Jean Harlow and Clark Gable.

"[40][41] Initially skeptical about undertaking A Night at the Opera, Thalberg assured Wood that a coherent film structure would be imposed to incorporate love interests and musical numbers, alternating with the Marx Brothers' comedy creations.

Historian John Baxter observes that: Wood's handling the nihilistic Marx Brothers in A Night At The Opera...is impeccable, perhaps because unlike other [directors] he does not neglect the supporting cast for the intervening musical and romantic sequences which Irving Thalberg considered necessary to the film's commercial success.

[50] Navy Blue and Gold (1937): Here Wood returned to collegiate athletics, endowing this "light comedy" - starring James Stewart, Robert Young and Tom Brown—with a "rousing" Army-Navy football game.

Wood traveled to England to make Goodbye, Mr. Chips, the only professional sojourn of his career, part of an attempt by M-G-M to accommodate demands by British trade unions for a share of the lucrative American film exports market.

[57][58] The novel spans the life of an English school master (Robert Donat) whose lonely and inhibited existence is transformed through the love of his understanding spouse (Greer Garson) into a good-natured pedagogue beloved by generations of his students.

Fleming received screen credit for directing the film, though the precise contribution by Wood, as well as that of several other contributors, including George Cukor, Leslie Howard, David O. Selznick, and William Wellman has not been fully documented.

[62][63] Other than overseeing the vast operations at the movie's multiple venues, Wood with certainty filmed the entire sequence where Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) shoots a Yankee bummer (Paul Hurst) who broke into the plantation household.

[66] Wilder worked closely with both Wood and Lesser to help preserve the qualities of the stage production by retaining narrator Frank Craven, who on-screen observes the lives of two rural families in New Hampshire near the turn of the 20th century.

[67][66] Based on a Christopher Morley story entitled "Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman", Ginger Rogers plays the working class protagonist who struggles to choose between two men in a love triangle.

[73] After a protracted struggle to formulate a screenplay satisfactory to censors at the Hays Office, Wood and Warner Brothers commenced to film Henry Bellamann's grim and anti-nostalgic novel of American small-town life, Kings Row.

"[76][77] The high quality of Wood's directorial performance was augmented by three of Hollywood's finest professionals in their fields: set designer William Cameron Menzies, cinematographer James Wong Howe and composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, collectively creating a film of "classical proportions.

"[78] Biographer Tony Thomas offers this appraisal: [I]t is Sam Wood who guided all these elements and molded them into a fascinating portrait of love, hate, madness, tragedy and happiness in the life of an American town around the turn-of-the-century.

[89] Paramount Pictures' casting of the doomed hero was a foregone conclusion, as the book's author, Hemingway, had his friend and actor Gary Cooper in mind as Robert Jordan when he conceived the story.

"[92][93] Audiences and critics felt "the love interest was over-played" in For Whom the Bell Tolls at the expense of clarifying the political issues that defined the Spanish Civil War: a brutal and violent struggle between fascist and anti-fascist forces.

[94][95] Wood was undoubtedly disappointed when "the major project of his career" did not garner him an Academy Award nomination, an honor that was bestowed on his cinematographer Ray Rennahan, his set designer William Cameron Menzies, musical director Victor Young and his four leading cast members, with Katina Paxinou winning Best Supporting Actress in her role as the revolutionary matron Pilar.

[98]Though For Whom the Bell Tolls did not achieve the critical success that Paramount had anticipated, Bergman and Cooper, who recognized the potential of their film pairing, followed Wood to Warner Brothers to star in a Western romance, Saratoga Trunk (1945).

"[103] The director of Hollywood's Production Code Administration, Joseph Breen, registered some distaste for the characterization of Clio Dulaine (Ingrid Bergman) as a mixed-race (half-Creole) courtesan who seeks matrimony with wealthy white gamblers and capitalists.

[105] Wood continued his collaboration with Cooper in a comedic vein after the delayed release of Saratoga Trunk with International Pictures' Casanova Brown (1944), a vehicle intended to appeal to female movie patrons.

[111][112] Photographed "lovingly" by cameraman Russell Metty, Fontaine's Orry-Kelly wardrobe reduced the actress to a "gorgeous artifact" and she complained later that director Wood neglected to develop the potential dramatic complexities of her character.

[111][114]An adaption of the William Wister Haines World War II drama published in 1947, Wood's portrayal of the "anguish of wartime aviation command" is "unembellished" by any combat footage and shows fidelity to the novel of the same name.

[121] Contrary to conventional wisdom among Hollywood studio executives that sports features were "box-office poison", The Stratton Story was "the sixth-biggest theatrical draw of 1949 and Stewart's first bona fide hit since his return from World War II.