Wings

The real storyline is between pals Jack Powell and David Armstrong (played expertly by Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen). Anyone interested in the First World War will find this film a real treat! The training scenes I found particularly interesting. Then there are the many aerial fighting scenes. They are so well done they look like documentary footage. Scenes shot from the pilot's point of view put the viewer right into the action! Scenes like these make the "two guys in love with the same girl" plot seem so insignificant.

You also get two brief but excellent performances by a very young Gary Cooper and an aged Henry B. Walthall from Birth of A Nation fame. Although only 49 in this film, Walthall does an amazing job portraying a crippled old man grieving the departure of his son.


American Melodrama at its Best   October 15, 2003
Eric C. Player (Delta Junction, AK USA)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

Wings (1927), is not only the FIRST winner of the Best Picture Academy Award, it may be the BEST film to hold that title, and I say that knowing that Casablanca, Gladiator, and The Last Emperor all hold the statue too. There have been some stinkers dubbed "Best Picture" in the past, (Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan??? The Greatest Show on Earth over High Noon?! Spare us all) but this is not one of them.

Even supporters of the film, writing reviews here at Amazon, can't seem to resist taking shots at Wings' plot, but I'm here to tell you it is just fine, even solidly written. Some reviewers don't sound like they have seen this movie in a long time, or if they have, they slept through it. For one thing, the "Love Triangle" is not as convoluted or hard to grasp as others have implied:

Jack Powell (Buddy Rogers) has a crush on one Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston), the local beauty queen. She finds this cute and indulges it a little bit--actually too much. But she is quite sincerely in love with someone else, David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) a well-off local boy who isn't quite able to figure out how to tell Jack to butt-out because it doesn't involve money. The wild card in all of this (literally and figuratively) is Mary Preston (Clara Bow), who lives next door to Jack and has been mooning over him since she was a little girl.

That's the whole dynamic. I have no idea what someone was thinking when they suggested Mary expressed any feelings for David (She never does). Some have said they can't believe Jack would go for Sylvia with Mary next door. I see their point, because the casting of Clara Bow in her role is like having Kirsten Dunst living next door and not noticing. The problem is, Jack isn't SUPPOSED to notice Mary until the end, when he has experienced the war and realizes that everything he wants is right there at home where he belongs. In the beginning he is all about Fast Cars and the Trophy Girls.

So, the plot thickens as the US gets dragged into World War I and both Jack and David sign up as pilots. Naturally each of them heads to Sylvia's house to say good-bye. Sylvia prepared a locket with her picture in it for David, but Jack sees it first. This scene is a great display of awkwardness wrapped in etiquette, especially when Sylvia tries to let go of Jack's hand. Jack takes the locket from her, and, this being more than she can stand, Sylvia almost gets the words out to tell him the truth when David gets there. At this point Jack turns on the macho-factor, and he is so gleeful about rubbing Sylvia's locket in David's face that he doesn't even notice she never kissed him good-bye.

Sylvia makes up for David's loss of the locket with some tender words and some passionate kissing--no mystery where her feelings lie--and the three of them head off for war. Three, because Mary goes too, as a nurse. Another complaint about this film and it's plot has been that Clara Bow wasn't given enough to do, shunted off into a side part even though she got billing as the Leading Lady, but I just don't see it. Her part was as big as any Romantic Interest in most movies out there; a good example for comparison would be Kathleen Quinlan's roll in Apollo 13. Most of her scenes were not shared with Tom Hanks, but she turned in an emotional and Oscar-nominated performance nonetheless.

The air battles in this film have never been topped anywhere. Ever. And that includes anything involving aliens, fighter jets, or a galaxy far, far, away. The information that the actors flew their own planes is misleading. Actors couldn't do what these pilots do. The stunt flying is by the US Army Air Corps in Texas (!) where the movie was filmed (I dare you to have guessed that on your own). What Rogers and Arlen do is all their own close-ups, flying the plane as they careen and dive. When the camera ran out of film (or the planes ran out of gas) a stunt pilot from the Army would pop up and land the plane.

The resolution of the story I won't comment further on, except to say that it is extremely moving and does highlight the madness of war, especially the kind of war WW1 was. I support military action for just causes, but everything has a cost and Wings lays that cost bare. These were issues being struggled over long before Vietnam, just in case you thought Hippies invented protest.

OK, two other responses to the "plot mongers" on this review board: (1) After complaining that she didn't do enough, they insist that Mary's tactics in Paris were out of character. No they were not. Mary had to get Jack away from that "other woman" and get him his orders before he got court marshaled. She was not becoming a floozie, only dressing the part, and she paid the ultimate price for the risk she took. It also helped to stir up Jack's feelings about her in later scenes, and get him thinking. (2) Melodramatic? Sure. Unoriginal? Well... if you make that claim because you can guess what's coming or you've seen it all before, just ask yourself how old these movies are that you are comparing Wings to, and check Wings' release date again. Maybe the plot-heist occurred in the other direction.

This film deserves a DVD release. I have been enamored with, and watching, this film since I was 13 (30 now). It shattered my little-boy prejudices against both black and white and silent films in one great blast of anti-aircraft fire, and I have been spreading its gospel ever since. You will not ever see a better World War 1 film.


Romance and Danger in the Skies   January 8, 2007
Bobby Underwood (Bakersfield, California United States)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

This silent film has aged well and soars through the skies for over two hours of action and romantic drama. Ace William "Wild Bill" Wellman helmed this great silent about two young men who can't wait to fly through the skies and the Great War which gives them their chance to live their romantic dreams.

Wellman's filming of combat in the clouds is still as fresh and exciting as it was when it won the first Academy Award for Best Picture. Sometimes lost, however, when historians talk of this film, is the sweet and innocent romance which frames the film.

Clara Bow shines with great energy and charisma as the young sweet Mary Preston. Her "girl next door" portrayel of an American girl longing for the love of Jack Powell (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) is endearing. Another often forgotten element is the performance of Jobyna Ralston as the lovely rich girl, Sylvia, both Jack and David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) are in love with.

Under Wellman's direction, her Sylvia has a tenderness and likability, rather than just the "rich girl standing in the way" she might have been in another film. Bow is lively, cute and sexy, but Ralston's Sylvia has some romantically framed scenes which helps her hold her own.

For the most part, however, Wellman's film is about males and the bonds often formed during wartime. These flyers are not jaded yet, as in Hawks' "Only Angels Have Wings" and it is that romantic innocence which makes this an engrossing and sentimental masterpiece of a bygone era.

Mary will join the Women's Motor Core and cross paths with her true love. David and Jack will become closer than brothers, one making the ultimate sacrifice and allowing his friend to go on with his life free of guilt. It is the story which is the star here, rather than the actors. Gary Cooper does, however, exude star power in his brief time as the veteren flyer welcoming the two new recruits with a sobering reminder of war.

Wellman's famous scenes of open-air planes soaring into battle like graceful wings carrying danger and death are unforgettable. The fact that the two actors actually flew their own planes as this breathtaking footage was shot is astounding. The battles are real and deadly, Wellman showing there was honor in the skies as well as danger.

Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of director Wellman here is despite the tragedy and danger clearly shown, he still manages to convey the more romantic aspects of war, or at the very least the romantic notions of it. One of the great films of the silent era, "Wings" does not disappoint. An entertaining film which stands on its own, it is also an historical bridge between an innocence which was soon to pass into those cloud filled skies and never return.



Silent But Speaks Volumes   July 27, 2000
Daniel G. Berk (West Bloomfield, Michigan)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

This is the first picture to win the best picture Academy Award, and, of course, the only silent film to do so. If you've never watched a silent film before, it will take some effort, since if you take your eyes off the screen, you will not "hear" what the actors are saying, that is, you may miss a dialogue box. Also, at two hours and 19 minutes, the film tends to be long. However, the combat flying sequences are still some of the best ever filmed, and are well worth the effort.

Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen certainly perform well. Clara Bow is at her most beatutiful; however, in terms of actual screen time, hers tends to be more of a supporting role. The short Gary Cooper scene is a bonus and presages the great career to follow.

The film is interesting both substantively and in terms of its significance in film history; it is worh the investment in time.


Wings Music- - - Cheesy Music?- - -   January 18, 2004
Dr. Tom Mote (San Antonio, Texas USA)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

The first review of the tape version of Wings ended with a remark to the effect that it was worth sitting through the cheesy organ music. If and when the DVD version is released, and IF IT INCLUDES THE CHEESY ORGAN MUSIC of the taped version, I intend to be at the head of the purchase line!

Dr. Tom Mote, Major, USAF, Retired