Wings

An incredible war movie and love story, with the great Clara Bow and Charles "Buddy" Rogers providing romantic intrigue. This restoration of the first Best movie Oscar (for production) winner is magnificent. It's almost inconceivable that the air war scenes were filmed in 1927, with hand cranked camera's!
I yet have to see this movie on the big screen.

Film scholar Scott Eyman in his 1997 book The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926–1930 says: "Ironically, a mass-market silent spectacular like William Wellman's Wings effortlessly showcases far more visual variety than mainstream American films have offered since: it displays shifts from brutal realism to nonrealistic techniques associated with Soviet avant-garde or impressionistic French cinema - double exposures, subjective point-of-view shots, trick effects, symbolic illustrations on the titles, and so on."
I couldn't have said it better.
While we're in 1927: this was another watershed year for the movies. See: It (w/ Clara Bow again), Metropolis, My Best Girl (Pickford), Napoléon, Seventh Heaven, Sunrise (which one the other Best movie Oscar for Best Artistic Achievement.

Paramount took quite a bit of time to bring WINGS to DVD, but it was well worth the wait. It's a joy to see this landmark film as it was meant to be seen and heard.

I say "heard" because silent films were rarely seen in silence. Large theaters in cities had full orchestras to play either a composed or compiled score for a major film like WINGS. Slightly smaller theaters would have a theater pipe organ. A theater organ is a very different thing from a church organ and is capable of some very realistic sound effects. Neighborhood theaters would have either a piano or a reed organ and the accompanist might make up a score as he/she went along using a personal repertoire of musical motifs appropriate to the action. Thus the experience of seeing any silent film varied depending on the music that was supplied. This DVD release offers both an orchestral and an organ score. Both are excellent. Watch them both and you'll notice the difference.

Clara Bow has top billing in WINGS even though her character is barely necessary to the plot. She was Paramount's biggest star at the time and WINGS was their "big picture" for 1927. Nonetheless, she brings real charm to the role and her scenes are memorable. The Motion Picture Production Code was not yet a fact of life and Bow fans watching closely could catch a glimpse of her topless. Of course no one in 1927 could foresee the day when the pause button on a DVD player would allow viewers to appreciate Ms Bow's beauty at leisure.

Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen are the male stars who carry most of the plot. Though both of them were fine actors, neither of them had previously starred in a big-budget film and neither would again. And then there's the bit part played by a promising young actor by the name of Gary Cooper. He has barely more than a minute of screen time, but it's a star-is-born minute.

The real stars of WINGS are the planes. Director William Wellman and writer John Monk Saunders had been pilots in World War I and brought both their wartime experience and love of planes to the film. And they couldn't have done it without the help of the US Army. (There was no separate air force in those days.) Much of the location shooting was done in the vicinity of Fort Sam Houston and Kelly Field in Texas, and the battlefield for infantry fighting was constructed on adjoining land. Army pilots flew in most of the combat sequences, though Hollywood stunt pilots did the crack-ups. And they did crack up a lot of planes. These weren't miniature models as had been used in previous air combat films, rear-projection effects as would have been used in lower budget films or CGI effects as would be used today. They were real pilots crashing real planes at great risk to life and limb, to say nothing of great expense.

Even the stars flew combat scenes. Arlen had served in the Royal Canadian Flying Corps, though he hadn't seen combat. Rogers learned to fly, though he got terribly airsick. Cinematographer Harry Perry hit upon the idea of attaching motorized cameras (most cameras in those days were hand-cranked) to the fuselages of the planes so that the pilots could be filmed with the sky or ground behind them. So, in many scenes, the actors are flying the planes, running the cameras and acting all at the same time. The result is fabulous. WINGS deserved its Oscar for Best Production as the Best Picture category was known in 1928. It also received the award for Engineering as special effects were called in those days.

For WWI plane buffs there's even a Gotha bomber, the ultimate weapon of the day. Several shots both on the ground and in the air give a feel for the size of the Gotha as compared to the one-engine planes of the period. Even seeing a Gotha in a museum can't match that.

In reading some reviews on Amazon I notice that some people have trouble getting comfortable with older films and particularly with silents. Please try to accept these films as the slightly different art form that they are, much as an opera is different from a play. They should not be colorized (though color tinting and detail painting is completely appropriate) and they should not have dialogue sound tracks grafted onto them. They have a poetry of their own. If one can't accept that then don't watch them, but don't suggest that they be butchered to fit modern tastes.

One thing that even people who love silents often don't realize is that the original aspect ratio of these films is practically square, something in the range of 1.15:1. Over the decades these films were copied and recopied onto film stock with more rectangular ratios and we had to accept that as the price of seeing these great old films. But now many of the studios are releasing these films on DVD in their original aspect ratios. Sometimes, depending on the make of your equipment, this might require adjusting the aspect ratio of either your DVD player or your TV. Whether your screen has a 4:3 or a 16:9 aspect ratio you should have black bars on both sides of the picture, which should be almost square, in order to see it without distortion.

All I want to add is my agreement that this film is unsurpassed in authenticity. No 1WW air combat film since "Wings" has resorted to the pilots doing all their own camera work as they literally fly through their maneuvers, with the principle characters as actual pilots. Everything we see on screen from the airplanes is real, no studio shots whatsoever. And there are even a handful of genuine, first World War aircraft as well (they mostly smash them up, which is cool and upsetting to see at the same time!).

The relative costs involved were astronomical. If the producers had had to come up with the money to pay for all of the donated military gear and ammo and extras, the picture could not have been made. It remains to this day the most expensive movie ever made (in relative costs, not raw dollars).

The story is sappy, but I don't mean that in a bad way. It was, after all, the top of the "silent era", with every cliché being firmly established. Clara Bow is "The It Girl" in her prime. The movie has it all.

This DVD is first class, crisp and almost flawless. The music created for this version makes the viewing experience even more satisfying.

It is hard to believe the restoration work Paramount put into this classic. This is sure to make any person who loves movies to appreciate this silent classic! The clarity and detail for this print is outstanding! And the new 5.1 DTS-HD soundtrack is great, too. They did wonders with the added sound effects during the battle sequences. This blu ray really blew me away! The documentary on the restoration process of this classic is really informative, too. I watched that before I did the movie and I appreciated the paintstaking time that people took into restoring this beauty. Some will love the 'detail' of the video, but I was put back on the clarity. I still like these old films to look like movies and not video. Just like Warner's KING KONG with all its grain, it still has the atmosphere and feel of classic movies. So the question is: When is the image 'too' clean? Don't get me wrong. I am not complaining, but too much cleaning does distract me from these silent films. Eureka's import blu ray of SUNRISE is a great example with the right amount of grain being left intact. I am not sure if Paramount used any DNR, but would be curious to find out (I don't recall if it is mentioned in the restoration doc or not).
But if you are wondering to upgrade to this blu ray of WINGS, the answer is definately YES!!! This is one awesome release!
Don't forget to crank up the surround sound!