Customer Reviews for
Wings
A wonderful flim with the best air sequences (all real) ever filmed
I thought about the first Academy Award winner for best picture -- "Wings" from 1927 -- while reading a review of "Flyboys", the latest theatrical air epic about World War I.
Produced less than a decade after the end of World War I, the airborne war account in "Wings" is about as realistic as a film can be. A silent classic, probably accompanied by an organ or some other sound track on the DVD, the film is very close to the plot of "Flyboys": Americans leave the farm to volunteer for action in the Great War, join the air corps, find romance, then go in for pyrotechnic air shows over France.
The flight scenes in "Wings" are nothing short of outstanding. There were no computers or blue screens in 1927, of course, so the producers had no choice but to do the real thing and film it from airplanes. The results are staggering and among the best air war scenes in the history of cinema.
Buy, borrow or rent this delightful, exciting and sentimental film anytime you want the thrill you think you'll get from "Flyboys". The latter flick is getting tepid reviews but this one very deservedly won the initial best picture Oscar. Don't delay if this sounds like something that will help your spirit take flight, because it will.Wings
Still Academy Award material in our day
This fabulous 1927 silent film was one of the first to win two awards (Best Picture and Special Effects) when the Academy Awards began, and it has lost none of its magic over the many past decades. Famed director William Wellman surely must have impressed the audience of the late 1920s with his realistic action scenes as well as other interesting camera work, not to mention giving life and depth to the three main characters in this war drama. Even though I am not a war film enthusiast, I still enjoyed the whole 2 hours and 20 minutes of "Wings", mostly due to the characters who are caught up in a love triangle and America's involvement in the First World War. There are exciting action scenes of WWI fighter planes, fear and emotions over dying in battle, but also fun scenes between the characters to balance things out perfectly. This formula, along with top quality effects and action scenes, makes it as enjoyable and impressive to watch today as it must have been in the late 1920s.
The main character is played by Charles `Buddy' Rogers (who later married Mary Pickford) and the girl next-door who loves him is played wonderfully by "the IT girl" Clara Bow; both stars adding extra sparkle to a good dramatic - and at times witty - screenplay. I also enjoyed the very brief but memorable appearance of Gary Cooper as a fellow airman sharing quarters with the two young men of the story: best friends in war despite being rivals in love over the girl back home.
The budget-priced DVD available on this page is zone-free and comes from Taiwan, but the picture quality is very good throughout, and is accompanied by an excellent organ score by the renowned Gaylord Carter. "Wings" is not just for silent film enthusiasts, but should appeal to the general movie lover just as much. Grab it while you can!
Wings
Wings
Any chance the distributors will get rid of the captioning which was added to the DVD? This is a silent film which, of course, already has captioning. I would love to buy this DVD to add to my Oscar's Best Pictures collection, but with the captioning deleted.Wings
The first film to receive an Oscar
This is one of the last of the great silent films. It stars Clara Bow as Mary, and Charles Rogers and Richard Arlen as two friends who join the U.S. Army Flying Corps in World War I.
Dave and Jack are both in love with the same woman, who is actually in love with Dave (although Jack is blind to that). Mary, the girl who lives next door to Jack, is madly in love with him, but he seems oblivious to that. When the men go off to war, Mary enlists as an ambulance driver and follows them to France. Paths cross in Paris. Mary finds Jack, but he is blind drunk and doesn't recognize her. When they are caught together in a hotel room, she is sent home without Jack ever realizing what happened.
Jack and Dave are involved in the air war part of the "Big Push," and Jack inadvertently kills Dave in air combat. It is only when packing up Dave's belongings that he finds letters and realizes the other woman loved Dave. There are poignant scenes at the end when he returns home to face Dave's family, and also to reunite with Mary, not knowing he had been with her in Paris.
There is outstanding film footage from the silent era, including the air combat. Clara Bow gave an outstanding performance as Mary. None of the main actors and actresses from this silent film seemed to survive into the era of sound motion pictures where voice quality was important (a squeaky voice, for example, could survive in silent films where everything was pantomime). You might recognize one actor in a small part who did survive. If you think you recognize Gary Cooper, you are correct.
My one complaint is that the people who put this out as a DVD added captions at the bottom of the screen. Those are most annoying as they simply repeat the words on the screen. This is a black and white motion picture using technology of that era, so don't expect 21st century effects.Wings
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