 |
Our Columnists Reflect on Oscar's Best Films |
|
|
|
The Very First Oscar-Winner |
 |
The only silent film to win
the Best Picture Oscar
of TheColumnists.com
Sure, "Wings" was the first motion picture to win the coveted Best Picture Academy Award--and so it earned its place in Hollywood history. But why should anyone care to see it today? Come on, it's a SILENT movie that first played to audiences 80 years ago! It's nothing but a curio, right? Something only stuffy film freaks could love?
WRONG!
I love "Wings." I've loved it ever since I first saw those arresting still photos from it in Deems Taylor's "A Pictorial History of the Movies" as a young boy. I desperately wanted to see it then because I was fascinated by The First World War, the "War to End All Wars" in which tanks and airplanes and poison gas first were used on a massive scale even while horses still dragged cannons to the battlefield and men fought from fortified trenches in blasted landscapes littered with barbed wire.
So, I loved "Wings" long before I finally saw it on a cameo-sized movie screen in a San Francisco art house when I was in my mid 20s and discovered it was every bit as exciting and fulfilling as I'd always known it would be. And I loved it just the other day when I put my old video cassette version of it into my VCR and let it roll for the umpteenth time in the last 20 years.
Why is it still watchable after 80 years? Let me count the ways.
First, it has a solid storyline that still appeals: Two young men, Jack (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) and David (Richard Arlen), are bitter rivals for the same beautiful girl, Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston), but they become close friends when both enlist in the Army Air Force in 1917 and wind up in the same squadron battling German aviators in the skies over France. Meanwhile, tomboy Mary Preston joins a female volunteer group and becomes an ambulance driver on the European front to be near the boy she loves--her next door neighbor, Jack.
Second, "Wings" is a richly-mounted time capsule, loaded with sights no longer possible to see in our modern world--real aircraft battling real aircraft, not the bogus "dog fights" filmmakers only can show us today with the use of digital images because the real aircraft no longer exist. It's also interesting to see how America perceived going to war in a 1927 film compared to any modern film about war.
For instance, Jack and David are giddy with excitement about going overseas, hopefully as aviators, to fight the nasty Germans. They're unmindful of the fact that that brutal war, raging since 1914, already has decimated the youth of England, France and Germany. They still believe war is a great adventure. Today's young men can watch the carnage on the 24-hour news networks, so the majority aren't jumping with joy at the prospect of being in the midst of anything like that.
We now know that an inordinate number of American boys were killed just during their training as pilots in the flimsy open cockpit aircraft of World War I. In the film, this happens to one of the young men we meet--and both Jack and David are stunned speechless.
"Wings" was the first great epic aviation movie and, in many ways, it's still the best rendition of that pioneering air war, rivalled only by "Hell's Angels," Howard Hughes' early talkie from 1930 with its memorable bi-planes vs zeppelin sequence.
John Monk Saunders, who wrote the original story for "Wings," was a real-life aviator who knew exactly what went on in that first air war. So did the film's young director, 31-year-old William Wellman, an American who already had fought in the French Foreign Legion and had actually flown with France's legendary Lafayette Escadrille. After the war, he made a living as a stunt pilot in air shows before turning to the movies. For that reason, he wanted "Wings" to be as realistic and honest as possible in replicating aerial combat.
Wellman, directing only his third film, rounded up real-life World War I era pilots to recreate the airborne action, so some of the spectacular things seen on the screen were in most cases being done by fliers who'd really done them before--with real guns blazing.
Paramount gave Wellman a mighty budget for that era, hoping he could turn out a blockbuster that could rival the recent success of rival MGM's 1925 hit "The Big Parade," at that time the most successful war movie in Hollywood history. What he was able to put on the screen still amazes: Skies full of real aircraft, flying over battlefields crawling with uniformed German, French, English and American soldiers while artillery shells burst everywhere and primitive tanks are rumble over the landscape.
In my favorite sequence in "Wings," a gigantic German Gotha bomber attacks a French town where American soldiers are assembling. This aircraft was a huge bi-plane with pilot, bombardier, tail gunner and waist gunner. We watch as its bombs fall on the town, where the soliders have all huddled in buildings for cover. Meanwhile, heroine Mary comes ambling into town in her Red Cross ambulance, unaware bombs soon will be falling all around her. From the air, Wellman shows us an entire town--not miniatures--and we watch as the bombs blow everything to hell. Such a scene today would cost many millions.
Before the Gotha can make a second bomb run, Jack and David zoom at them in their bi-planes, machine guns firing incendiary bullets. While Jack attacks the bomber, David goes after the two German fighter plane escorts. We see close-ups in the aircraft and long shots taken from a camera plane that's following the action. This is all done with real aircraft--and the crashes when they hit the ground aren't models either.
The action sequences are all breathtaking: The American squadron attacked by "Captain Kellerman & His Flying Circus," the film's homage to Baron von Richthofen and his German air aces; David's daring escape from German soldiers through a swampy marsh; his subsequent theft of an idling German fighter; Jack's attack on German observation balloons that are spotting American targets for German artillery while David keeps an entire squadron of German planes off Jack's tail, and so on.
 |
has a reunion with Charles "Buddy" Rogers, left, and Richard Arlen in "Wings." |
Such sequences assured Paramount men would flock to buy tickets, but "Wings" also lured female moviegoers by featuring four of Hollywood's brightest newcomers in showcase roles that would make them all stars. Rugged Richard Arlen, who plays David, the boy from a wealthy family, was a real-life pilot himself. Distinctively he-man in looks and manner, Arlen was launched into orbit as an action star by "Wings" and stayed one for a generation. (Think of a young Harrison Ford).
Boyishly handsome Charles "Buddy" Rogers. (Think Leonardo DiCaprio or a young Tom Cruise.) Rogers, who at one point in his early career led a dance band, was a charmer who'd be a teen magazine cover boy if he were starting out today. He was swoon-bait in the late 1920s and no doubt the girls in the audience would have been every bit as anxious as neighbor Mary was for an opportunity to crawl under his home-made "hot rod," nicknamed "The Shooting Star," even if it meant getting a little axle grease of their noses...or whatever.
And though he played only one poignant scene in "Wings" as aviation Cadet White, the young flyboy who shares a tent with Jack and David at the training camp in San Antonio, newcomer Gary Cooper was catnip to the camera. Women panted and, within two years, he was starring in his own Paramount pictures, including the original talkie version of "The Virginian" (1929) with "Wings" star Richard Arlen.
The fourth young star of "Wings" was Clara Bow, whose screen popularity was at its peak in 1927. She was already renowned as Hollywood's "It" girl, a term created by writer Elinor Glyn to describe the special kind of appeal that some girls have that is hard to pin down. Bow certainly had "It" and had starred in the movie by that name, which made her Hollywood's living symbol of The Flapper Era and The Roaring '20s.
Though Bow looked like the Girl Next Door--and she actually was the girl next door in the movie--she seldom behaved like one off screen and was known for her wild night life, her sexual candor and her extreme high energy on screen. Putting her in the midst of these hunky young men was a calculation that really paid off for Paramount because millions of women flocked to a war picture they might otherwise have avoided, just to see what Clara would do to Arlen and Rogers.
In her early scenes back in America, Bow didn't enthrall either one of the boys. She had a "big" hairdo that wasn't very becoming and, even though Bow was fairly busty for the era that worshipped flat lines for women, her Mary just looks lumpy--and not very sexy. All that changes once Mary comes to France as an ambulance driver, wearing a cute little cap and jacket. When she finally comes face to face with Jack at a Paris night club, he's on leave and has gotten himself pretty polluted with drink. He c;an barely focus on Mary and doesn't even recognize her. Ticked that he's being shared by two sexy French girls, Mary is about to give up on him when an older French night club lady loans her a very sexy dress, giving her the necessary showcase for her physical properties that will finally get through to loopy Jack.
When we finally see Clara Bow in her jazz baby outfit, we can understand what had been wrong for her so far in the movie: She wasn't showing enough of her "IT" to transfix poor Jack.
The other female star in "Wings" was Jobyna Ralston, who played Sylvia, the girl both Jack and David were in love with when the movie started. Awesomely beautiful, Ralston had been leading lady to comic Harold Lloyd in his silent classic "The Freshman." She added yet another box office lure.
All the above made "Wings" a box office sensation that was still selling tickets two years after its initial release in August of 1927. By that time, Hollywood had converted to talking pictures and, while still in its seemingly never-ending initial release, sound effects were added to the film to further extend its run. One widescreen sequence even was added for special engagements in key cities.
Still need another reason to look at "Wings" today? Here's a real arcane one: The chance for hard core sports fans to see one of the great prizefighters of the 1920s--Ed "Gunboat" Smith--as a movie actor. In "Wings," Smith plays the Army sergeant who first signs up Arlen and Rogers, then gives them boxing training. In the film, Smith beats up on Swedish-American comedian El Brendel, who plays an aircraft mechanic, while showing other recruits how to box.
Smith was a two-fisted bruiser who was one of the "American White Hope" boxing champions crowned while black champion Jack Johnson ruled the heavyweight division. Smith won the "white" title in 1913 by knocking out Arthur Pelkey, then lost it to Frenchman Georges Carpentier. Ironically, Smith beat Jess Willard in 1913 in a 20-round bout. Willard eventually was the "white hope" who beat Jack Johnson (who may have taken a "dive" for big money) and became the universal heavyweight champ. Smith had been a sparring partner for Jack Johnson and fought the famous black champ in a four-round exhibition in 1911. Smith also fought the immortal Jack Dempsey three times, losing decisions twice in 1917 and was kayoed by Dempsey in 1918 after suffering nine knockdowns. The following year, Dempsey kayoed Willard and became the heavyweight champ.
Are there some detractions to "Wings"? Naturally, given 80 years of changing styles, modern viewers will find the two leading men a little too "innocent" to be believed and the sentimentality, so common in silent pictures, may overwhelm you. For instance, when David leaves for the war, his tearful mother, his wheelchair-bound father and even his pet dog all line up to cry, snuffle and whine goodbye. It's a bit much.
But there are some beautiful touches from director Wellman. For example, when one of the leading characters dies, Wellman doesn't show his face, but rather shows the rotating propellor on a nearby plane slowly coming to a halt with a military cemetery in the background. It's not just a big, sprawling war film, but a movie with lots of bold artistic strokes by its young director.
"Wings" went on to win the first Academy Award for Best Picture at the 1929 ceremony at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. In the first five years of the Oscars, films qualified for Oscars on a "seasonal" basis. Films released between August of 1927 and August of 1928 were in contention that first year. So, "Wings" was Best Picture of 1927-28, beating out four other silent films--"The Last Command," "The Racket," "Seventh Heaven" and "The Way of All Flesh." All the films but Fox's "Seventh Heaven" were from Paramount.
William Wellman's initial showing in the Oscars foretold a very successful Hollywood career. Although he lost the first directing Oscar to Frank Borzage ("Seventh Heaven") and never won one, despite other nominations, "Wild Bill" Wellman is regarded as one of Hollywood's truly legendary filmmakers. Among his other classics: "The Public Enemy" (1931) with James Cagney; "Call of the Wild" (1935) with Clark Gable; the original "A Star is Born" (1937) with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March; "Nothing Sacred" (1937) with Carole Lombard; "Beau Geste" (1939) with Gary Cooper; "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943) with Henry Fonda; "Roxie Hart" (1943) with Ginger Rogers, the film that was remade as the musical "Chicago"; "Yellow Sky" (1949) with Gregory Peck; "Battleground" (1952) with Van Johnson; "The High and the Mighty" (1954) with John Wayne and Wellman's final film, "Lafayette Escadrille," (1958), a career-ending World War I aviation bookend with "Wings."
Charles "Buddy" Rogers married "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford in 1936 and lived in reclusive wealth with her until she finally died. Richard Arlen married Jobyna Ralston, the girl he pined for in "Wings," and had a long, satisfying career on film. He died in 1976.
Clara Bow had a less rosy run of fortune. An abused child in her youth, she was sexually precocious--and promiscuous, if rumors be truth. The distinguished film historian Leonard Maltin, in his "Movie Encyclopedia," tells us the widespread story that Clara once "took on" the entire University of Southern California football team in one night "has not been disproved." She had a rank Brooklyn accent and didn't feel comfortable with talking pictures, though she made a few talkies at Paramount, her popularity waned. She put on too much weight and had to do severe dieting. Paramoutn dropped her and Fox picked her up for a few more fairly well-received films. But her career ended in the early 1930s after she married cowboy star Rex Bell, who quit movies for politics and became lieutenant governor of Nevada. Bow went into seclusion soon after their marriage and wasn't heard from ever again. She died in 1965 at age 60.
But all these lively stars live on endlessly in "Wings," one of the greatest silent films and one that surely deserved taking its place in movie history as the first Oscar-winning Best Picture.
OTHER 1927-28 BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: "The Last Command," "The Racket," "Seventh Heaven" and "The Way of All Flesh."
©2007 by Ron Miller. The videotape cover illustration and photo are courtesy of Paramount. The "Oscar" logo and the phrase "Academy Awards" are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. This column first posted Feb. 19, 2007.
You can comment
on this column online. Please address your message to either
"The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click
here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|