Two young men from the same town but different social classes end up as fighter pilots in WW1. Jack Preston is a keen auto mechanic, building and modifying cars. David Armstrong comes from a wealthy family. They are both in love with the same woman, Sylvia. Her heart belongs to David but she doesn't let Jack know and plays along with his infatuation. Meanwhile, Jack's neighbour, Mary, is deeply in love with him but he just views her as a friend. WW1 interrupts the romantic entanglements as Jack and David enlist in the US Army Air Service (Air Service of the AEF at the time). They are initially bitter enemies, due to them both vying for Sylvia's affections. Over time, however, they become very good friends. They are both posted to the same fighter squadron in France, where being a fighter pilot means every day could easily be your last.Incredibly gritty and accurate war drama, especially for its time. Doesn't glamorize war at all and shows the dangers and bloodshed very well. Helped by some superb action scenes. With no CGI available, the staging of the dogfights and massive land battles must have been a huge undertaking. It is worthwhile in the end as the action scenes are incredibly realistic and engaging.Solid, emotional plot that ties everything up rather well. While this is almost as much a romantic drama as a war drama, the movie doesn't overdo the schmaltz.Great work Charles Rogers and Richard Arlen as Jack and David, respectively. Clara Bow shows why she was THE actress of the late 1920s, giving a wonderful performance as Mary. Incredibly gorgeous, while absolutely nailing the free-spirited, self-reliant tomboyishness of Mary.The cast also includes Gary Cooper in a minor role.The nuances of silent movies do take a bit of getting used to, initially. You keep expecting to see captions for dialogue, but often none come. This is because, other than for important or scene- setting dialogue, the director leaves it to the viewer to figure out what was being said. The performances are much more physically expressive than what we would expect today, to convey what is being said and what is going on. Wings won the first ever Best Picture Oscar, in 1929. Technically the award was shared, as in that year (and that year only) Best Picture was split into two categories, Best Picture, Production and Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production.

I liked this movie. For the year that this movie released it was a very entertaining war movie. The dog fights were fantastic and there was a good amount of action. Some scenes were surprisingly funny. During the dog fights if a plane was shot down the fire was actually colored. The scenes where both David and Jack were getting chased was intense. I liked this movie, I was surprised by it. The only problem that I had with the movie was when David was getting chased during a dog fight and the person chasing David just stopped chasing him, I thought that was weird. I thought that it was going to be another movie were everyone was just standing around and talking, but it wasn't it had a lot of action and it also showed a good friendship between Jack and David.

This was a great film that has really stood the test time. I think the most eye opening part of this film is that it was a silent film that did really well when sound films were coming out in the same year. The acting in this film was precise and excellent and has made me appreciate actors for their raw emotions with the omission of sound in this film. I thought the plane scenes in this scene were excellent and really ahead of their time. To get these shots in the air and get them to look so clean seemed like it would be impossible in 1927. The camera work in this film along with the acting I think are what films for many years should be compared to. I would recommend this film for people trying to get into silent films

Obviously films made almost a century ago are going to look dated but even so, Wings has not aged particularly well. Certain silent films such as Greed, The Crowd, The Gold Rush, Nosferatu, Safety Last or The Wind are just as effective nowadays as they were when they were first released.The big draw towards Wings back in the Nineteen-Twenties was for its spectacular and innovative depiction of air combat during World War I and for the time these scenes were handled well and largely 'done for real' when there wasn't CGI technology to fall back on. When viewed now, however, the air battles seem overlong and unspectacular, and the constant interruption with descriptive captions hardly helps either. The problem is that they've just been bettered so many times since. Wings couldn't, and doesn't, compare well with something like, say, Pearl Harbor (2001), a modern equivalent in many respects.Luckily, Wings has more going for it than just aerial duels and I found that its strengths lay in its human drama rather than the action scenes as it sports a good cast on top of their game with a plot centred around two friends who are both love rivals for the same girl, a situation complicated further by another girl whose love for one of the protagonists is unrequited.Here and there are some moments of great innovation with the camera and even some unexpected turns of the plot - for example, and most unusually for a war movie of the time, the enemy is not portrayed as wholly evil. Although Wings is essentially a serious film, there are some comedy sequences along the way which I found tedious and unfunny (much involving El Brendel's character). The business with the champagne bubbles extended way past the point of interest. And yet other moments are strangely absent: What happened to Jobyna Ralston's character at the end?A triumph in its day, Wings is still very watchable, but there are other films from the same period which can still offer a much richer viewing experience.