"Wings" has the distinction of being the first movie to win the "Best Picture" Oscar. Many people don't rate it as high as I have, but I fully enjoyed it. I must admit that the story line away from the action scenes, is a little lame at times.Clara Bow who was at the top of her game at the time, heads up the cast. She plays Mary Preston who is in love with neighbor Jack Powell (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) who likes to work on cars instead. Jack along with poor little rich kid David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) are both in love with Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston) whom I assume is also a socialite. Guess who Sylia loves?When the U,S. enters WWI in 1917, the boys sign up for the Army Air Corps and are shipped out to France along with the film's comedy relief Herman Schwimph (Ed Brendel). Before leaving, Sylvia, who loves David, gives Jack her picture unwittingly, giving him a false impression.In France, Jack and David don't at first, get along due to their rivalry but become fast friends once the fighting starts. The two become ace pilots eventually winning a decoration from the French Government for their heroics. Mary, meanwhile has joined the Women's Corps driving a Red Cross truck in, you guessed it, France.After the intermission, we rejoin Jack and David for some fun and merriment in Paris. This is where the story gets a little ridiculous. Jack and Lt. Cameron (Roscoe Karns) are whooping it up amid "the bubbles" when , you guessed it again, Mary shows up. David is too drunk to recognize her so she dresses up in a flapper dress and takes him up to a room in a hotel. Unknown to Jack is the fact that he has been recalled to duty. As Mary is changing to her uniform, two MPs arrive and catch her with her pants down and assume the worst. She is sent back home as a result.And this is where the real action begins. Jack and David are mowing down the German planes when David is shot down and goes into hiding. Jack assumes that he has been killed. Jack soldiers on. Later David still very much alive, manages to steal a German plane and heads for the American lines. As luck would have it, Jack spots the German plane unaware that it is David at the controls and...............................................................................The aerial photography is simply amazing. The dogfights are realistically shown as are the ground war sequences. You have to remember that there were no computers back then so that these sequences were actually shot as you see them. The crashes and various explosions are as real as has ever been shown on the screen.Clara Bow was probably brought on board for her box office appeal because her role is definitely subordinate to that of Rogers and Arlen and the battle scenes. Rogers would go on to marry Mary Pickford in 1937 even though he was many years younger than she. They stayed married until Mary's death in 1979. Richard Arlen had been in movies since the early 20s. He would go on to a lengthy career at Paramount and keep working until his death in 1976.Watch for a young Gary Cooper in a brief role of Cadet White the doomed pilot, Henry B. Walthall as David's father and Hedda Hopper as Jack's mother.A true classic!

Set in a WWI setting the first thing I noticed about this film was the amazingly shot flight scenes, they capture what it must have felt like to fly these planes so perfectly it completely immerses you into the time period. The acting on the other hand was a slightly over shadowed by these visuals. The acting was a bit over the top but like I've seen with other silent movies, like Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, this is necessary in order to better portray the emotions of the characters and the overall mood of the scene. However the way the comedy mixes with the dark tone of a war setting is also very well done. With today's standards in movies I'm constantly surprised with how these silent films can make me laugh and feel amazed all in one.

William A. Wellman's "Wings" is now remembered as the very first movie to win an Academy Award, and the only silent winner until "The Artist". Focusing on some men sent to fight in World War I, it takes an undeniably patriotic view of the war: the heroic Americans gallantly go after the cruel Germans. And of course the movie doesn't miss a chance to show off Clara Bow; I bet that the sight of her helped a lot of boys become men back in the 1920s.However, there are some other things that the movie shows that I would say deserve more attention. During the past year or two, the hundredth anniversary of the first global war has drawn questions about the war. An important scene early in the movie shows a German-American man enlisting in the army, only to face discrimination for his German background. This happened a lot in the US during World War I, encouraged by Woodrow Wilson's fanatical nativism. Elia Kazan's "East of Eden" also features a scene set during World War I in which a German-American gets attacked as "the enemy". The most pronounced instance of this was the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.Later in the movie, some characters are discussing things that have happened in the war. One of them says "That's war." Indeed, what befell the individuals is characteristic of war. The horror that occurred on the battlefield only scratches the surface of the damage that WWI did. Not only did it senselessly kill millions of people and create a lost generation, but the Versailles Negotiations imposed reparations on Germany that set the stage for Hitler's rise to power. On top of that, Wilson (a dyed-in-the-wool racist) refused to listen to a young Ho Chi Minh, setting the stage for the Vietnam War. The division of the Middle East cut off Armenia from Mt. Ararat (after the Armenians had already suffered a genocide at the hands of the Ottomans), while the Kurds, Yazidis and Palestinians didn't even get their own countries.As for the movie, I thought that it did a good job with the battlefield scenes. The heroification weakens the movie, but the cinematography is some of the most impressive that I've ever seen. I guess that I recommend it as a look at old-style cinema.

It's 1917 in a small town. Jack Powell dreams of flying. Mary Preston is his clingy next door neighbor. He falls for city girl Sylvia Lewis but she's actually in love with David Armstrong from the richest family in town. The boys both join the war and become flyboys. They meet Herman Schwimpf who gets pushed as a flyer but rejoins as a mechanic. They would battle the great German ace Count von Kellermann leader of the Flying Circus. Mary joins the effort as an ambulance driver.The story is weak melodrama with El Brendel trying to inject some comedy. The backstory is old fashion and slow. It's a boring start. The planes, the men and the machineries of war is what this film excels in. The flying footage is terrific and the battles are impressive. The love quadrangle keeps it from truly taking off. Nevertheless, one has to love those planes.