Wings (1927)

"Wings" is remembered for many things. It is remembered for being the first film to win the Oscar for Best Picture back in 1927 (Best Production they called it), and the only silent film ever to do so. It is remembered for it's brilliant plane stunts and battles, with cameras placed on the wings, tails and cockpits of actual planes to fabulous effect (a major feet in 1927 if you think how planes and cameras were). It is remembered for the brief, yet striking, 2 minute appearance of a very young Gary Cooper, which earned him a contract as a major player. But, besides this, this 2h20 minutes World War I epic has little more to offer, and actually has not aged very well. True that when this was presented in 1927 it was like anything the audiences had seen so far, so it is not hard to believe that it blew them away. Actually, even in modern movies with massive special effects (yes, I am looking at you Pearl Harbor), the magnificence and realism of these plane battles was seldom repeated. But that it's not the movie's problem. The back story (actually one which Pearl Harbor might have been inspired in) is a soap opera with little interest, and in which the movie looses a great amount of time, and, which is worse in silent films which need to be fluid, a great amount of titles. Jack and David (Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen) are two carefree american boys both in love with the same girl, who only loves back Jack. Clara Bow (whose famous image in the truck always appears when this movie is mentioned) is Mary, in love with David. Carefree existence still ensues before the boys go to, first boot camp (where still they are joyous and carefree) and then the actual war, when the dog fights are a constant in the skies, and the horrors finally strike them. Bow also goes to war, as a truck driver. Only the other girl never appears again, so why waste time with her in the beginning? The reason? To give the boys motives to fight about during the war. Nevertheless the first hour of the movie is great to watch (the boot camp and first part of the war). Be impressed with the camera angles they devised (all real), and the deadly stunts performed. Yet, when they have a weeks leave in Paris, so the movie takes a leave. The movie slackens and looses a lot of time showing them getting drunk in bars, and never gets back to its feet again. The rhythm is lost, and for a silent movie that's death. So, even if the second half of the war shows the final, decisive, big push, with air and ground battles, the attention of the audience is more difficult to grasp. Only in the climatic final chase in which one of the boys will meet his fate in an impressive twist of events, does the movie grasp the audience back on. Low on its human side, very high as a technical achievement. No other movie has so captured the essence of plane flying, with the exception of "The Right Stuff" (1983). "Sunrise", the picture which in the very same year won The Oscar For Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production (an award which only existed in that year), is still a much better film all around. It's master piece of filmmaking, when "Wings" is 'only' a masterpiece of technical aspects, made by a director, William A. Wellman, who would latter direct masterpieces as "Public Enemy" (1931) or "the Ox-Bow Incident" (1943).