Wings** (1927)

Enormous in scope and of breathtaking quality, it is no wonder that Wings was the first film to claim the award of Best Picture at the first ever Academy Awards. In fact, Wings all but sums up excellence in a motion picture. The direction and cinematography are among the best I’ve ever seen. Perhaps the only thing holding this film back is the fact that it’s a silent film.

This doesn’t mean that I have anything against silent films. In fact, the epic silent film Metropolis holds my highest possible rating. I think the problem lies in the silent film acting technique. Unlike Metropolis, there is a fair amount of facial overacting in Wings. It was essential at the time to express the emotions of the characters involved but nowadays it has a tendency to come across as a little hammy.

This minor issue aside, I was completely sucked into this film. Following two young men from a small town, Wings takes you on a trip through military training and into the air amidst the dogfights of World War I. Jack and David both compete for the affection of a young girl in their town but get called off to war. Through their training, Jack and David become best friends and end up fighting aerial battles against the German air force in France. Meanwhile, Mary, a girl from their hometown who is secretly smitten with Jack, joins the Armed Forces as an ambulance driver and desperately attempts to track Jack down amidst the chaos of war.

It’s romantic, it’s violent, and it’s a story that still resonates today. Hearing about young men going off to war and watching some of them return in a casket is something we are all too familiar with. Unlike some war films, Wings doesn’t romanticize the concept of war. In fact, it demonizes war as something that destroys the bonds of friendship and tears families apart on the home front. In some ways, Wings is an anti-war film. The message is short and comes in the final reel but its presence is undeniable.

What impressed me the most with this film is the use of aerial footage. There’s no camera trickery here when the main characters are shown in the cockpits of their planes. The actors all learned how to fly in order to capture the utmost realism of the dogfight sequences. Wider shots, showing the planes as they tumble and turn to gain advantage on their adversaries are beautifully captured on film. It just boggles my mind that director William A. Wellman was able to turn these ideas into visualizations. Only Metropolis and Gone With the Wind match the epic scope of this film.

As one of the costliest films ever made at the time, Wings wowed me with its attention to detail and uncompromising vision. The technical demands of this film must have been a logistical nightmare. But it’s a living, breathing film at the same time. It wasn’t held back or made stale by all of the details. The story is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. To pull the creative, technical, emotional and artistic aspects together so well makes Wings one of those rare films that truly is complete in every way.

I wasn’t as caught up in the romantic aspects of the film as original audiences may have been but I haven’t been moved by too many love stories, period. Wings mixes cinematic marvel with technical achievement and throws a splash of high-octane drama in to boot. As one of the few World War I movies I have ever heard of, let alone seen, I think it’s a shame that this film has all but been forgotten about except when movie historians talk about the Oscars.

This film is a classic and deserves more respect and attention than it has been getting in recent years. If you can handle silent films, then I highly recommend Wings to you.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5