Wings (1927)
Directed by: William A. Wellman
Starring: Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Richard Arlen, Clara Bow
Length: 141 minutes
Genre: War / Drama / Romance
1927-1928 Best Picture, Production
1927-1928 Best Effects, Engineering Effects (Roy Pomeroy)
The movie cost over $2 million to make, a huge sum of money for the time, and you can see why when you watch it. Some of the shots and the effects are miles ahead of what I've seen in other movies.
In a rural town, Jack Powell (Buddy Rogers) and David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) start off as rivals competing over the attention of a city girl (played by Jobyna Rolston, best known for starring opposite Harold Lloyd in many of his comedies). The city girl is in love with David, but doesn't know how to tell Jack. There is another girl, Mary Preston (Clara Bow) who is in love with Jack, but he doesn't know it, and she repeatedly has her heart broken when he turns his attention to the city girl.
Both Jack and David enter the military to become pilots. The are put in the same unit and fight constantly. It eventually turns from rivalry to friendship as they earn each other's respect. At this point, Gary Cooper shows up, playing the role of Cadet White for 1 scene. Cooper had been in over a dozen films at this point, but mostly as an uncredited extra. He started to get better roles , eve a few starring roles, but it was in this scene that he captured the attention of all of Hollywood. He quickly became a star.
The two friends head off to war, as does Mary Preston, who joins the war effort as a driver. While Mary is driving through Paris, she learns that Jack is there. When she finds him, he is completely smashed to the point that he doesn't recognize her and continues flirting with some French floozie. She changes into a dress and competes with the other girl and finally wins his attention, but he still doesn't realize it's Mary. She gets him back to his hotel room and as she's changing back into her uniform, a few MP officers walk in. She is forced to resign and heads home.
Soon after, Jack and David fight over a photo that the city girl had given to Jack. On the back of the photo, David sees a note that the girl wrote for David. He realizes the photo was meant for him and not Jack, but to protect Jack, he rips the photo up. Jack is enraged, and as the two fight, they are called to their planes. David gets shot down and Jack returns alone.
David survives the crash and starts to make his way back to the American base, but he has to avoid the Germans. Jack is fill with grief over David being shot down, and is determined to make the Germans pay. So, when David finds a German base and steals a plane to fly back to the US base with, you probably can tell what's going to happen.
Jack engages David without realize he's flying the German plane, and shoots him down. David crashes into a building and Jack lands his plane. When he reaches the German plane and looks inside the building, he sees the pilot has been placed on a table by some citizens, and realizes it's David.
Jack returns home and is greeted as a hero. David's mother forgives Jack for what happened and blames the war, and Jack is reunited with Mary. And yes, happy ending, Jack and Mary end up together.
In looking up information for Wings, I see references that the film's plot has been criticized. I think the plot for Wings was fine. In a lot of ways, I feel like I've watched a lot of cookie-cutter romances and cookie-cutter comedies (and plenty of them have been pretty good), but Wings didn't feel very cookie-cutter to me. It may not have had the best plot, or more than a simple plot, but it wasn't bad.
The effects were quite amazing. The director mounted cameras on planes, some pointing at the pilot, some away, during a re-enactment. They also attached smoke cannisters to some planes. They added flames in post-production. It was also obvious to me 2008 eyes that they extensively used models, but I can just imagine what it was like for someone in 1927 to see a shot of bombs being dropped from a plane onto a town and seeing buildings collapse and smoke billowing up when they hit. All from the a topdown viewpoint.
In fact, this was the first movie I've seen on this journey to use models so extensively. I remember watching a "making of" documentary on the first Star Wars film. They showed how they set up the models, shot them flying, and blew the up. They were essentially doing the same thing 50 years prior to Star Wars in this movie.
Clara Bow was the studio's biggest star at the time, but Rogers and Arlen were both just starting out at the time, and this movie made stars of them. The film's initial run lasted for 63 weeks. It was one of the most successful silent movies ever made.
Entertainment Rating: 8/10
Historical Rating: 10/10