WINGS: Blu-ray (Paramount, 1927) Paramount Home Video
I remain mildly flabbergasted when witnessing how well ‘silent movies’ continue to hold up under the jaundice-eyed scrutiny of today’s movie attendees, too many of us grown lax in our evaluations about ‘great art’ by Hollywood’s decades’-long assault of trivialized moving images, accompanied by a bombardment of stereophonic sound. A noisy movie is just that, however intelligently designed its sound field may be. So, to be enthralled by a movie where not one line of dialogue is uttered, is at once mesmerizing, in a sort of magical teleportation back to the turn of the last century, as, a refreshing departure from today’s, with all its costly thunder and reverb in 7.1 Dolby DTS. Hooking both the seasoned film aficionado and novice attendee alike, the silent movie is, perhaps, Hollywood’s truest international art form. A silent movie’s ‘dumb show’, unencumbered by dialogue or heavily-laden SFX, has but the sheer potency and screen presence of its enigmatic stars on which to pin, stimulate and massage our collective attention span. And capture the imagination, these shimmering gods and goddesses from the ‘real silver screen’ do – time and again, anchoring our emotional investment in their tale with a sincerity and passion for the work that is pretty hard to top. Silent movies require our contribution – nee focus - too. With a ‘talkie’ – even if you are momentarily distracted from the screen - you can hear what is happening. With the silent movie, it is the moving image that moors our level of concentration. However, having given ourselves over to this participatory exercise, we are never disappointed.
It is estimated over
80% of all movies made between the birth of Hollywood and 1929 have been lost
for all time. Mercifully, William Wellman's Wings (1927) is not among these discarded gemstones. And Wings lingers on as a colossal triumph.
While time and technologies have undoubtedly changed, the screenplay by Hope
Loring and Louis D. Lighton is as stimulating as ever: ditto for the vibrant acting
by Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen, and then 'IT' girl, Clara Bow – names,
virtually forgotten by all, except the diehard film fan. Paramount Pictures really
put its best foot forward on Wings -
a last grand gesture to the silent era. The proof is irrefutable to anyone with
eyes. Harry Perry's cinematography, incorporating hand-cranked cameras actually
bolted to real biplanes flying perilous missions in the sky, left me white-knuckled
and unreservedly appreciative, not just of the cameramen lensing this spectacle,
but also the actors - all of whom do their own stunt work! Yes – that’s right.
Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen are actually flying their own planes – no co-pilots/no
stunt doubles – and no rear projection to fudge the close-ups. It’s all
happening in real/reel time. Wings was shot almost entirely on
location just outside of San Antonio, Texas, at a then staggering cost of $2
million. Paramount, populates the wild blue yonder with 300 pilots, and several
hundred extras on the ground, even employing the U.S. Army Air Corp. as
technical consultants. Even so, Wild Bill Wellman remained the supreme puppet
master here, choregraphing aerial dogfights and battle sequences to achieve his
verisimilitude, long since the gold standard bearer for any film maker even
attempting to recapture such glory. During the intervening years, Wings craftsmanship has been oft
emulated, though never duplicated. That Wings
should go on to become the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences very
first Best Picture seems, at least in hindsight, a foregone conclusion. Nothing
quite like it had been seen on the screen in 1927. Arguably, nothing like it
has ever been tried again.
Behind the
scenes was a different story. Wings
shot for nearly 9 months at a time when the average film schedule barely outlasted
thirty days. While thoroughly impressed by Wellman’s raw footage, Paramount’s
executive brain trust wondered whether both their time and money might not be
spent more efficiently by their director. The rumor is, to clinch the deal, Paramount
sent one of its ‘bean counters’ to Texas to press this point, whereupon Wellman
rather impolitely informed the man he had only two options – either an
immediate trip home or another to the local hospital. The man promptly left of
his own accord. But on the day Wellman was preparing to lens the epic St.
Mihiel battle, financier, Otto Kahn arrived on set and inadvertently disrupted Wellman’s
timed detonations, resulting in several extras being seriously injured. Never one
to mince words, Wellman read Kahn the riot act; an appropriately chaste Kahn,
arriving hours later at Wellman’s hotel room, to inform him that whatever the
cost, he had anything he required at his immediate disposal to finish the
picture. Even with Kahn’s complicity,
making Wings took time – a lot of it
– and during the frequently long respites, where Wellman was logistically
embroiled in planning the next opus magnum – his cast and crew ran amok of the red-light
amenities in San Antonio. According to Hollywood lore, by the time Wellman’s travelling
circus checked out of the Saint Anthony Hotel, virtually all of the elevator
girls were pregnant. And Wellman had his hands full with Clara Bow too; the ‘It’
girl, carousing with several cast members, co-star Gary Cooper, and some of the
pro-pilots, despite her recently announced engagement to director, Victor
Fleming. Bow, then the biggest little trick in shoe-leather at Paramount, had
her way with certain decisions on the set too – chiefly, her strenuous
objections to the studio’s leading couturier, Travis Banton’s costumes,
slitting the necklines and trimming the sleeves of her outfits to accommodate her
own personal sense of style.
With much at stake,
our story opens during the free-spirited and halcyon last days in America
before WWI; a manly rivalry struck between suitors, Jack Powell (Buddy Rogers)
and David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) for the affections of town snooty, Sylvia
Lewis (Jobyna Ralston) - a girl with big city experience and aspirations to
marry well. David comes from the traditionally affluent family. But Jack is the
boy next door. Happy circumstance for Jack, since the girl next door, Mary
Preston (Clara Bow) just happens to be in love with him. Jack and Mary revamp a
beat-up car into a snazzy little roadster they nickname 'The Shooting Star'.
Mary tells jack, "You know what to
do when you see a shooting star? Kiss the girl you're in love with."
But this gives Jack the idea to go see Sylvia instead. Too bad for Jack that
Sylvia's heart belongs to David. Discovering the boys have been drafted into
the air corp. Sylvia prepares a silver locket with her picture in it for David
to carry into battle. She even writes an inscription of love on the back of the
photo before inserting it into the locket. Unfortunately, Jack mistakes the
locket as a present for him and Sylvia, not having the heart to straighten him
out, lets him keep it.
During basic
training, Jack attempts to knock David senseless in a boxing match. But after David
refuses to surrender to Jack - despite being badly beaten by him - Jack
realizes what a brave man David actually is and the two become steadfast
friends. Jack and David also meet veteran flyer, Cadet White (Gary Cooper in a
star-defining role) who is killed during a training exercise at base camp. Jack
and David fly, train hard and eventually partake in air raids over enemy lines,
wiping out many German pilots during their missions and winning the respect of
Lieutenant Cameron (Roscoe Karns). Given furlough in France, Jack takes on with
a French chorus girl (Arlette Marchal) at the Moulin Rouge before Mary arrives
to rescue him from making a terrible drunken mistake. It seems Mary has joined
the Red Cross Ambulance Corp. and just happens to be stationed in France at the
same time. Taking Jack back to her room, Mary's superiors learn of their
fraternization. Strictly forbidden under army regulations, Mary's association
with Jack gets her fired. She is forced to return home while the boy's fight
on.
Jack and David
come to a parting of the ways after David attempts to save Jack from
humiliation by tearing up Sylvia's locket photo before Jack can read her
inscription. The boys fly a harrowing mission. David is downed behind enemy
lines. Wounded but still very much alive, he steals a German plane and attempts
to fly back to the base. But Jack, mistaking him for an enemy pilot, shoots the
plane down. It crashes into a farmhouse and David is killed. Returning home, a
war hero, Jack is riddled with guilt. David's mother (Julia Swayne Gordon), who
vowed to hate Jack for the rest of her life, forgives him instead after he
returns to her the toy teddy bear David once vowed to carry with him through
the battle. Jack rushes home where he is reunited with his parents (George
Irving and Hedda Hopper) and finally, Mary who reminds him, as they look up and
see a shooting star, what he can do with the girl he loves. Having at long last
realized how deeply she cares for him, Jack leans into Mary and gingerly kisses
her.
Viewed today, Wings' male-bonding story line holds up
remarkably well. Part of the reason for the picture’s perennial freshness is
the liquidity of camera movement achieved by Harry Perry. Indeed, Wings seems a showcase predating all of
the visual techniques film-makers from our present generation still readily
employ to get the job done, but with an uncanny finesse lacking in most movies
from its vintage, and quite certainly, from all early sound pictures soon to
follow Wings. The camera soars -
literally – the frenetic pace of the editing, never once forgetting to tell a
good story, utilizing ground-breaking techniques that accelerate our viewing
enjoyment. The one curiosity is seeing Clara Bow's name above the title.
Despite her galvanic reputation as Paramount's 'IT' girl, she is not in this
film all that much. Wings is a
buddy/buddy flick; its real stars, Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen. Both have
matinee idol good looks to recommend them – Rogers, appealing more to the
prepubescent female film fan, while Arlen likely proved a mainstay with the
twenty-something gals in the audience. Despite their youth – and handsomeness –
both men can act too. In hindsight, it is a small wonder their respective
careers never advanced into the upper echelons of movie stardom after Wings.
The male bonding
chemistry is really what gives Wings its sparkle and heart. 'Wild' Bill Wellman's
attention to realism sells the drama, tragedy and heroism of those daring WWI
pilots as high cinematic art. Wellman was a relative unknown in the director's
chair when Wings was being prepared.
Asked by Jesse Lasky why he thought he would be the ideal choice to helm such a
weighty and expensive project, Wellman replied, "I'll make the best goddamn picture that ever was." That was
enough for Lasky. And Wellman damn near succeeds in doing just that. Wings remains a high-water mark by most
any creative yardstick one may choose to apply to it. In the 90+ years that
have since passed, nothing has come along to top Wings as an aerial epic. It needs to be screened more often today.
Paramount's
Blu-ray resurrects the glory and wonder of Wings.
Having undergone an exhaustive restoration, Wings is a marvel of digital restoration and film preservation. The
meticulous research performed by the studio on this deep catalog release is to
be commended and has yielded a magnificently layered B&W
and sepia-tinted masterpiece. The film is presented in hand-tinted sepia,
purple, deep azure and golden hues depending on the mood Wellman is endeavoring
to achieve. While certain scenes still retain a heavy patina of film grain, with
a marginal loss in fine details, the overall look here is gorgeous and a real
poster child for the film preservation movement. Truly, the elements, as ancient
as parchment, now look superb beyond all expectation. This disc will surely not
disappoint. Two orchestral scores accompany this presentation. The first,
preserves the 'organ music' that would have accompanied the film during its
general release. The latter is a full-on orchestral masterpiece with sound
effects that duplicates, as close as possible, the original limited ‘road show’
engagement in 1929. This latter scoring session is preferred as it genuinely
heightens our appreciation for the film. Extras are limited to three short
featurettes: one on the making of the film; another, the underscoring, and
finally, the restoration process. Bottom line: Paramount Home Video has done an
exceptionally fine job preserving this vintage classic for future generations
to admire and study. Wings is a
winner – period! Buy today. Treasure forever. Very highly recommended!
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
3
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