Customer Reviews

Wings (1927)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is yet another of the Asian plundering of classics movies, putting them onto cheaply made DVDs with no quality control whatsoever. Wait for a release that has been professionally remastered by the studio or a quality firm like Criterion or Kino. This release is merd.

For most cinema buffs whose interest extends to exploring the riches of BW/Silent movies, the 1927 "Wings" is a treasure trove worth plundering and replundering. It features the "It" girl, Clara Bow, whose fame had gone viral with her other 1927 starring role in "It," the delightful comedy about a social climbing flapper shop girl out to marry her boss. As it happens, the best commercially available restoration I could find of "Wings" is this Chinese version, which is pretty good, and of course the movie is a gem. My only reason for four stars instead of five is that the Chinese subtitles, though no worse than a minor distraction once you are used to them, nonetheless can't be turned off and are uneditable.

"Wings" was a groundbreaker in many ways. The first film, and only silent film, to win an Oscar for "best production" (later "best movie,") it marked the official screen debut, in a walk-on, of Gary Cooper, depending on whether his brief unbilled appearance in "It" may have been shot first. "Wings" is an epic length WWI era romantic tragicomedy in which Clara, as girl next door Mary Preston, surreptitiously follows boy next door Charles "Buddy" Rogers (who thinks he is in love with someone else) overseas as a volunteer civilian ambulance driver, as Rogers goes on to become an air ace of the Lafayette Escadrille. For aficianados of aerial acrobatics featuring swarms of dogfighting motorized box kites, this is as good as it gets until the far more pretentious Howard Hughes "Hell's Angels" extravaganza of 1930. For sufficiently quick-eyed fans of celebrity nudity, Clara's costume change in a Paris hotel room even features a nanosecond nipple-slip wardobe malfunction.

Clara Bow was, notoriously, no prude, and nowhere near as popular among her peers in the Hollywood cinematic community, who thought she was "common" and loved to diss on her partying Bohemian lifestyle and Brooklyn accent, as she was with the moviegoing public, who couldn't get enough of her natural spontaneous "flapper" persona. She was a natural actress and the camera loved her too, though Clara's popularity with fans depended on nothing more strenuous than reliably playing herself. Her life and career were turbulent with ups and downs, she retired from film-making in 1933 to become a wife and mother, and died of a heart attack in 1965 at age 60, ironically while watching a Gary Cooper film. Clara's personality cult lives on today, particularly as reincarnated in the cartoon character she inspired, Betty Boop. Today, Clara Bow's films, such as "Wings," are charmingly dated pop-cultural curiosities; by contrast, her appearances in them are anything but, being as electrically alive today as the day they were shot. Back in the day, Clara Bow had the indefinable "it." She still does.

The DVD of this classic silent movie leaves much to be desired. The entire menu is in Chinese and there is apparently no way to access different scenes. Unless you read Chinese, the DVD menu is inaccessable and useless. The actual copy of the film is reasonably good, but has Chinese subtitles.

(12/28/11 update: Paramount finally releasing this -next month- on blu and dvd; $20/$16 pre-order!) (*1/27/12 update: sorry, but Paramount THE COPY TO OWN! See details for THAT release) ...I found a nice DVD copy of this film on Amazon. Mind you, it is NOT restored: it appears to be a dvd-r from a fairly clean source (but there are many appearances of those digital squares -don't know the techno name for them-, mostly during action sequences). AND, it is entirely in English (intertitles and packaging - no other languages to have to watch!). As an exciting bonus, it has the "cheesy" Gaylord Carter organ score (some critics have no class, to describe it as such. The man was a genius!) Anyway, I am very pleased with my purchase, to the extent that IF it is ever given its proper respect (via a LONG overdue restoration, or even a generic studio dvd release. This WAS the first ever best picture -"production"), I might not succumb to a re-buy. (note: this was my first ever viewing of the entire film, after seeing a clip years ago: the "swing" scene at the beginning. Wonderful.) Oh, one more thing: I've read that this film was done in an early version of (gasp!) widescreen, 'Magnascope'. I have a (film) book, which shows a scene from approx. 1'58"45 sec. into the film, and comparing the 2 images, find that my dvd copy has about 30% of the photograph content. Oye! The picture MAY be just a photo that is not representative of the aspect ratio, but if it IS the actual film frame, I am hoping it is still available in someone's vault (someone should check in Buenos Aires!*). What a terrific find/restoration THAT would make! (*where complete "Metropolis" was found)

This is the only option on the market if you want to view the first "Best Movie" Oscar winner. I understand that its not HD or Bluray quality, but this movie was made in 1927, I'm not going to expect that its Avatar either. Base on the options I have, I felt it was even a blessing to view this all time classic.

Even if it is B/W and silent it is a fantastic glimpse into our own history of American culture.
It did win and deserved to be the first movie to win the Academy Award for best picture.
Trying to make a complete collection of every movie that won the Academy Award for Best Picture sounded like a good idea.
Never thought the first one would be so difficult to hunt down. Every store and website said that this movie, the first one to win,
was never put on DVD in the United States (region 1). I don't understand why, TCM shows this movie on occasion.
This DVD is considered ALL region on the label and plays just fine.

Wings is the most amazing silent movie that I have ever seen. If you are looking for amazing WWI action, realistic dogfights, heroic characters, and wartime romance, then this is the movie for you. Clara Bow is excellent and a very young Gary Cooper makes a memorable cameo. One word really sums up this movie: WOW.