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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.

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 IMDb, 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.

After complaining that she didn't do enough, some people 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.

Wings! 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. Barring that, see if you can track down the old Paramount Laserdisc, LV 2851-2, which is what I had. 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.

You could justifiably criticize WINGS lesser moments: the naive, "gee-whiz" dialog...the less than comedic "champagne" sequence in Paris...any of the romantic scenes...the idealized view of military life.... But as light entertainment, WINGS manages to hold its own, despite the passage of years. The battle scenes, easily the highlight of the film, may not have the intensity of later films, but the narrative is clear and precise. And this was not meant to be the last word in documentary accuracy: it's an adventure film tinged with romance, with engaging aerial fight scenes that capture your attention whenever they occur.

And personally, I felt that the music from the Wurlitzer organ tied together the film's various themes, musical and narrative, quite tidily.

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 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.