Les ailes

The first movie to win the Best Picture Oscar was this terrific WW1 aviation epic from Paramount Pictures and director William Wellman. Charles "Buddy" Rogers stars as Jack Powell, a small town guy who quickly joins up for the Air Corps when the US enters World War One. He's joined by David Armstrong (Richard Arlen), the town rich kid. Both Jack and David are in love with Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston), although Sylvia only feels the same about David. Top-billed Clara Bow is Mary Preston, Jack's girl-next-door who is secretly in love with him, so much so that she joins the ambulance corps in order to get sent overseas, too. Someone should have pointed out to her just how big France is. Jack and David become close friends in the crucible of war, but life is often short for a fighter pilot.

The aerial photography is truly incredible, and is the real highlight, although the ground warfare scenes are huge in scope and well-choreographed. The performances are all very good. Rogers and Arlen have a real bromance, and both exude star power. Cooper made quite a splash in an early, very small role. Bow is fun, but her scenes almost seem to be from a different movie. The movie also won an Oscar for Best Engineering Effects, a precursor to the special effects award. While this doesn't quite rise to the epic heights of The Big Parade, this is very good, and makes a good companion piece with that film in their depiction of "the Great War". Recommended.

My cousin Clifford M. Blackstone Sr. was the person who filmed the flight scenes in this movie. His son Cliff sent me photographs of his Dad filming this movie as well as a few others with Paramount Studios. Cliff said his Dad was put in an airplane and sent up in the air to crank out all those amazing flight scenes. He said his Dad told him he wasn't even secured in the plane. Cliff Blackstone Sr. is from Mercer County, PA and Cliff Jr. says his Dad was the man who created the zoom lens. Just a side bar, Clara Bow, the lead actress in Wings, had a hairdresser Maryl who Clara introduced to Cliff Sr. Cliff Sr. married Maryl and they had Cliff Jr. It is really a nice story.

This film is, no doubt, a timeless triumph of the silent cinema. I first saw it three years ago and have seen it at least 30 times since then. I've only looked back to see that I have it in my collection...but not on DVD! These studios need to start thinking back to the days in which movies as good as these were made and stop producing so much garbage that they think will make tons of money without considering whether it's done right or not. This film taught me just how important gesture and body language can be in the acting world, whether it be on film or on stage. I know just how "in-character" an actor is just by looking at their face, their eyes, and how they're written in the script. Don't get me wrong, people can overact and underact in certain parts, but if you do anything without considering your character's expression or mood, regardless of whether or not your voice is unbearable to hear, you will never see success past the sound of crickets hiding in the audience. The industry knew that sound was coming. Most didn't accept this truth, but they knew it alright! "Wings" reminds those who've seen it, as with most classics of the silent cinema, that ACTIONS SPEAK A MUCH GREATER VOLUME THAN THE SPOKEN WORD. I've said all I need to say, and now I'll let this picture speak for itself.

David's expressions, when he is saying good-by to his family, are absolutely wrenching. The only one who overacts is Clara Bow, but she's supposed to be the bubbly, irrepressible girl-next-door, so I give her a pass.

(Was the yellow colorization added to flames then or recently? I found it distracting.)

The uniforms are perfectly detailed too, perhaps because the actual war was so recently in people's memories. Modern movie-makers have gotten very careless about uniform details, I think because they assume no one will notice.

Wonderful scene in the Folies Bergere -- note the female couple at one table in the opening clip -- nothing is new under the sun.

Beautifully digitalized restoration,astonishingly crisp. What a national treasure!

This entertaining and occasionally impressive movie is still well worth seeing in spite of its flaws. The combat scenes alone make the rest of it worth watching, and Clara Bow gives a very good performance. She has plenty of energy as always, and here she makes her character especially sympathetic. But it has its weaknesses, too. The story is contrived and full of obvious holes, and except for Bow most of the acting is rather routine (Buddy Rogers is as likable as ever, but no more).

The highlights of "Wings" come in the battle scenes, and they are awfully impressive. Done without computers or other such advantages, they are exciting and are usually completely realistic. The aerial dogfight scenes are especially dazzling. This part of the movie is not shallow stuff, either, since it has a good balance between the thrilling and the horrifying. If the main story-line had been better, this could have worked very well as a classic film about the realities of war and its effects on the young persons who must carry the heaviest load in a war.

But unfortunately, it has the story that it has, which could easily have been better. It is far too heavy-handed, and is also riddled with unlikely coincidences, implausible developments, strange decisions by the characters, and many other such holes. If you can somehow look past all these problems, then it produces some moving and emotional moments, but such moments are too often undone by the contrived ways that they are set up. It's just the kind of mess that has often impressed the individuals who vote for well-known awards, but a movie with such strengths deserved to have a much better plot.

Nevertheless, it is still well worth watching for its strengths, and not just because it is the answer to some trivia questions. Just in case there are any modern movie fans who have accidentally wandered into the silents section of the database, please don't think that this is the best of what silent cinema has to offer, just because it won an arbitrary award. There are many silent film masterpieces that are vastly better than this. But it's good entertainment, and has some portions that were made with great skill.