Wings (1927)

• Review: ** ½ (out of ****)
• Starring: Clara Bow, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Richard Arlen, Jobyna Ralston, El Brendel, Richard Tucker, Gary Cooper, Gunboat Smith, Henry B. Walthall, Roscoe Karns, Julia Swayne Gordon, Arlette Marchal
• Director: William A. Wellman
• Screenplay: John Mark Saunders, Hope Loring, Louis D. Leighton
• Length: 139 min.
• MPAA Rating: N/A

The first film ever to win the Best Picture award at theAcademy Awards is also the only silent feature. Wings tells the story of a fighter pilot in The Great War and themany loves and losses he experiences while fighting for his country.

The film opens as Jack Powell (Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers) finishes work ona stripped down motor car. Watching and helping is his neighbor Mary Preston(Clara Bow). Together, they finish work on what Mary would soon christen theShooting Star. When she suggests what a man is supposed to do when he sees ashooting star is kiss the girl he loves, Mary’s left in the dust as he goes offto see Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston) a girl from the city. She loves DavidArmstrong (Richard Arlen) who would soon become Jack’s buddy in arms in thesky.

After registering for the military, both men become pilotsand go through a short training sequence before ending up on their first DawnPatrol. As they take to the sky, they are soon faced with a formation of Germanfighters that results in an aerial battle.

Where facial expression carries the weight of the story,Rogers and Bow are quite good. Rogers’best scenes are later in the film when faced with a great number of sorrows. Arlenis at his best when competing with Rogersover the same girl. Despite Jack thinking Sylvia loves him because she gave hima locket, David knows Sylvia actually loves him and does what he can not todash Jack’s dreams. It’s the only plot that never fully resolves by the film’send.

Director William A. Wellman wasn’t even nominated for thedirecting prize for his best production winner. Wings is one of only three films in Academy history to suffer sucha feat (Grand Hotel and Driving Miss Daisy are the other two).It is primarily his faults that keep the film from being better than it couldhave. Despite some amazing effects (the aerial combat scenes would soon beoutdone by Howard Hughes’ Hell’s Angels)for the time, Wings fails to amountto more than your average war film.

During one scene, as soldiers are marching off in the lowerforeground, with the sky as its background, several images of war are exposedover the film to create an intriguing effect. It’s one of the few stylisticelements that works in a movie filled with clichés. As the silent era wascoming to an end, films like Wings and Sunrise (the film that should have beencalled best picture despite being awarded the prize for Artistic Quality ofProduction) were dying breeds in 1927 as evinced by the following year’sAcademy Award winner the all-talking, all-singing The Broadway Melody.

Wings isn’t amasterpiece. It’s an interesting story that certainly isn’t abashed in itsportrayal of the hazards of war. However, the film isn’t much more than afootnote to history. With its Academy Award win as Best Picture, Wings has been rescued from what wouldhave been almost obscurity.

-Wesley Lovell (October 3, 2006)