Wings (1927): Silent Spectacle and the legendary birth of the Blockbuster (Review)

Reviewing silent cinema is a difficult task, evaluating something so antiquated with the sensibilities of the modern era requires the ability to look past modernity and adopt an eye keyed into the gaze they were first viewed with. Failing that, legacy is always an entry point into the early days of cinema. Both as relevant today as we are talking about the first-ever best picture Oscar winner, beating out a film that has been consistently acknowledged as one of the greatest of all time, F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans – William A. Wellman’s Wings.

Wings is the melodramatic tale of Jack (Charles “Buddy” Rogers) and David (Richard Arlen) who are competing for the affections of Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston), to the backdrop of the First World War. Paramount’s biggest star Clara Bow was written into a later draft to play the girl next door who loves Jack without his realising. Along the way, Jack and David head out to train for the military before leaving for the battlefields as their intertwined character arcs develop from friendship to rivalry before closing out on tragedy. Funny. The more things change the more they stay the same, as for all of the accumulated story arcs displayed here are still being followed to the letter today. You could say Wings feels very modern, or, being more of defeatist, modern films that borrow so heavily feel old.

Wings becomes more noteworthy than its status as a piece of trivia if you consider it (like some) as the birth of the blockbuster. Silent cinema was defined by the artistry of the German trailblazers and comedy talent (Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin). There is very little of the magnitude of Wings. Vast panorama’s full of extras, battle sequences, huge sets and practical effects are never far away. To put into context how much of an impressive spectacle Wings is just fast-forward to the 1940s to 1960s. In that thirty-year spell, the scale may have expanded but filmmakers and actors were still opting for pratfalls and overwrought dramatics to sell the chaos of battle. The practical effects in Wings are beyond superlatives.  The work feels too modern to possibly have been made in 1927; huge explosions with actors on set (even in the same room), buildings are destroyed, it’s visually extraordinary.

People who have been kept away from silent cinema until 2011’s breakthrough hit, The Artist, will view silent cinema with a cutesy condescension where something can only be good if it “is good for its age”. Retroactively Wings throws a spanner in the work of that modernist rational as you can see the raw DNA from Wellman’s in hundreds (maybe even thousands) of films that have been made since.

That is a sentiment that is doubly as effective in the practical effects, Georges Méliès may have conceived the idea of practical theatrics but Wellman and company took it further whereby it was only outmoded with the inception of computer graphics. Besides being the first best picture winner, it also has a tracking shot that has gone on to be regarded as one of the greatest of all time, and for good reason too. It would take decades upon decades before the camera would regularly be used comparably to how Wellman uses it in that shot.

The most interesting aspect of Masters of Cinema’s award-winning treatment is the score. Two are provided; the first is by Gaylord Carter and the second by J. S. Zamecnik. The first score does the film absolutely no favours; the piano-heavy composition is the very image of dated. One could almost describe it as a slightly classed-up end of the pier style of music, while it fits the history of silent cinema it doesn’t aid the storytelling process. This leaves only the elegant Zamecnik score to elevate the film beyond the retro. That modern score along with fresh title cards and brand new presentation is all that’s needed to help carry Wings to that elusive plot of the land where the classics graze.

Thanks for reading our late review of Wings (1927)

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