I’ve been into the Oscars for a few years now, every year attempting to watch as many of the nominated films as I can. It was this year in particular that had me thinking about the history of the Oscars, with its re-ordering of awards and the short song “history” segment. A crazy thought popped into my head that I should watch all of the Best Picture winners. I don’t know what’s wrong with me and why I always have to watch lists, especially when I can never finish anything I start, but here we are anyways with the very first winner of the award for Best Picture, Wings.
The first Oscars was held in 1929, but was for movies that were released in 1927/1928 and it had an interesting set of “Picture” awards. There was an award for Outstanding Picture, which is for the best overall production and that award went to Wings. Outstanding Picture would later be renamed to Best Picture and it’s the same category as we have today so technically this is the first Best Picture award. However, there was another award for Unique and Artistic Picture which was supposed to award a movie for having the “most unique, artistic, worthy and original production.” This award went to Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and while it isn’t technically the Best Picture winner as we know it, since the category was removed in the next year this movie retroactively is considered the second Best Picture winner for the 1929 awards. I want to mention it now because I’ve already seen this movie, and while I didn’t write about it, I remember it being a slog so I have no interest in re-watching it right now. Not to mention that I’m not the biggest fan of silent movies and 1929 is in fact the only year where true silent films won Best Picture (you’ll have to wait 81 posts for me to explain what I mean by “true silent film”). All this was a long winded way of me weaseling out of watching two silent movies, so without further ado let’s get into the real reason we’re here.
Wings is about two men who become fighter pilots in WWI. I surprise myself constantly with how little I think of silent movies. I didn’t expect it to have an interesting story or any kind of production value. In my brain when I think of silent movies, I’m thinking of cheap sound stage productions and flimsy stories that don’t capture my attention. This movie couldn’t be further from that if it tried. I’m blown away by the scope and production value of this movie.
Lets start with the war scenes, where they had thousands of extras, real tanks, planes, and weaponry courtesy of the military. The military viewed the movie as good publicity that might increase enlistment numbers so they were on board to lend the crew some equipment. The real equipment and shear number of extras helped to make the war scenes feel modern and believable. I can only imagine what it must’ve been like when it premiered to see this in theaters after probably never seeing anything about the war before. It’s quite the spectacle and that alone is impressive, but that’s not all this movie did.
Think back to some old black and white movies you’ve watched where the characters are driving somewhere and I bet you’re picturing them sitting in a stationary car in front of a green screen. That’s what I would’ve expected from this movie for the plane scenes. Instead of taking the easy way out, they had the actors themselves learn to fly the planes. One of the actors already knew how to fly, but the other learned on the job for his role. They would go up in the air with cameras mounted on the planes to capture their reactions. Imagine not only having to act but, takeoff, fly and land a plane at the same time. It was worth it for the quality picture we got in the end. Since these were all real authentic elements, nothing has aged so you can watch this movie in 2021 and still be impressed.
Now, all that could make your film worthy of the best production of the year, but there was so much more going for it that I think put it over the top. The music is another element to silent movies that I normally can’t stand. In my mind they are boring and repetitive, but the soundtrack to this movie is fantastic. I was humming the main theme for hours after the movie ended, in fact I’m humming it right now. There is a distinct theme song which is great, but even the supporting music is done so well that it enhances all the key moments of the ending.
The ending. Oh, that ending. Remember how I said that I figured the movie would have some flimsy boring ol’ story? Not Wings! This feels like the blueprint for modern summer blockbusters. It’s such a classic tale, but it wasn’t predictable. I would love to talk about the ending in more detail, but I don’t want to spoil a 96 year old movie. It’s so much better when you watch it unspoiled. I don’t know if this has even happened to me before, but this movie made me cry. A silent movie made me cry.
I think that’s the perfect place to end this post. Clearly I enjoyed this movie. On top of everything I already mentioned there are so many things I didn’t even touch on: the infamous nightclub over the table panning shot, the first same sex kiss in film and the fact that it was lost until 1992 and then gorgeously restored in high definition. If you’ve never seen a silent movie before, I think this is the perfect introduction because it has enough modern elements that you won’t feel so culture shocked. I love that it’s the first Best Picture winner because I think this is the better initiation into silent movies compared to Sunrise. After you watch this, I wholly recommend #963 True Heart Susie (1919) and #300 The Kid (1921). Not as a shameless self promotion, but because these are two other silent movies I saw that really stuck with me. It will never be my favorite period in film history, but slowly I’m building up that acquired taste and getting to experience these little gems like Wings.
Verdict: 9/10
The Waffleton Post 