Harockerce What a beautiful movie!

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

bsmith5552 "Wings" has the distinction of being the first movie to win the "Best Picture" Oscar. Many people don't rate it as high as I have, but I fully enjoyed it. I must admit that the story line away from the action scenes, is a little lame at times.Clara Bow who was at the top of her game at the time, heads up the cast. She plays Mary Preston who is in love with neighbor Jack Powell (Charles "Buddy" Rogers) who likes to work on cars instead. Jack along with poor little rich kid David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) are both in love with Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston) whom I assume is also a socialite. Guess who Sylia loves?When the U,S. enters WWI in 1917, the boys sign up for the Army Air Corps and are shipped out to France along with the film's comedy relief Herman Schwimph (Ed Brendel). Before leaving, Sylvia, who loves David, gives Jack her picture unwittingly, giving him a false impression.In France, Jack and David don't at first, get along due to their rivalry but become fast friends once the fighting starts. The two become ace pilots eventually winning a decoration from the French Government for their heroics. Mary, meanwhile has joined the Women's Corps driving a Red Cross truck in, you guessed it, France.After the intermission, we rejoin Jack and David for some fun and merriment in Paris. This is where the story gets a little ridiculous. Jack and Lt. Cameron (Roscoe Karns) are whooping it up amid "the bubbles" when , you guessed it again, Mary shows up. David is too drunk to recognize her so she dresses up in a flapper dress and takes him up to a room in a hotel. Unknown to Jack is the fact that he has been recalled to duty. As Mary is changing to her uniform, two MPs arrive and catch her with her pants down and assume the worst. She is sent back home as a result.And this is where the real action begins. Jack and David are mowing down the German planes when David is shot down and goes into hiding. Jack assumes that he has been killed. Jack soldiers on. Later David still very much alive, manages to steal a German plane and heads for the American lines. As luck would have it, Jack spots the German plane unaware that it is David at the controls and...............................................................................The aerial photography is simply amazing. The dogfights are realistically shown as are the ground war sequences. You have to remember that there were no computers back then so that these sequences were actually shot as you see them. The crashes and various explosions are as real as has ever been shown on the screen.Clara Bow was probably brought on board for her box office appeal because her role is definitely subordinate to that of Rogers and Arlen and the battle scenes. Rogers would go on to marry Mary Pickford in 1937 even though he was many years younger than she. They stayed married until Mary's death in 1979. Richard Arlen had been in movies since the early 20s. He would go on to a lengthy career at Paramount and keep working until his death in 1976.Watch for a young Gary Cooper in a brief role of Cadet White the doomed pilot, Henry B. Walthall as David's father and Hedda Hopper as Jack's mother.A true classic!

jacobs-greenwood This World War I action drama features spectacular aerial sequences of vintage dog fighting and a romantic angle featuring its top billed star Clara Bow. It was directed by William Wellman and written by John Monk Saunders. Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Richard Arlen, Jobyna Ralston, El Brendel, and Roscoe Karns fill the other primary roles.Jack Powell (Rogers) is an all American boy and Mary Preston (Bow) is the girl next door that admires him. After Jack gets his new hotrod assembled, Mary dubs it the "Shooting Star" and Jack drives off without her to take his would-be sweetheart Sylvia Lewis (Ralston) for a ride. But Sylvia loves David Armstrong (Arlen), the richest boy in town, and so it goes. When war breaks out and it's time for the United States to enter the fray, both Jack and David enlist. Sylvia prepares a locket for David with her picture inside, but Jack mistakenly assumes it's for him. Seeing how excited he is to receive it before going off to war she lets Jack keep it and then she explains the decision to David, to whom she proclaims her love.But David gets a good luck charm of his own – a small childhood teddy bear – from his mother (Julia Swayne Gordon) while his wheelchair bound sentimental father (Henry B. Walthall) watches on. Meanwhile, a heartbroken Mary still gives Jack a picture of herself before he leaves for training camp, where German immigrant Herman Schwimpf (Brendel) gets a hard time at enlistment until he flashes the "Stars and Stripes forever" tattoo on his bicep and declares his U.S. citizenship.At training camp, Jack and David are rivals until, during a brawl, each earns the other's respect. By the time ground school is over, the two have become best friends. Before their aerial training begins, they meet Cadet White (Gary Cooper!), a more experienced trainee who jaws with them briefly before leaving to fly his morning exercises, during which his plane collides with another and he's killed. Soon, however, the men are on their way to Europe where Jack and David quickly advance from fledgling flyers on the dawn patrol to experienced veterans. When an enemy bomber dubbed the Gotha threatens to destroy Mervale – a tiny village packed with munitions and jammed with billeted regiments – the two are sent to shoot down the "great dragon".Mary, who had joined the Woman's Motor Corps of America, finds herself in the middle of the action. Right after she'd driven her puddle- hopper into the town to deliver medical supplies to combat the flu, the bombing begins. Though the damage is widespread, she survives and cheers on the American fighters as they procede to shoot down the bomber and its two swift escort planes.For these acts, Jack and David become aces and receive medals and a furlough to Paris. But shortly after the men are found enjoying the city's girls and champagne, the high command that's planned the final push to defeat the Germans cancels all furloughs and recalls the fliers, who must return or face a court-martial. In a superfluous comic sequence that seems out of place and contrived to get more screen- time for starlet Bow, Mary corrals a drunken Jack, who's captivated by 'magic' champagne bubbles, in order to get him back to the front on time.This final push has David convinced that he'll not return. He gives Jack his medal and asks his friend to give it to his mother if anything should happen to him. But Jack gives it back to David and states that it will be alright. After it's learned that Mary has resigned and gone back home, Jack has a brief argument with Lieutenant Cameron (Karns) about the possible reasons why; he defends Mary.David thinks of his true love and asks Jack if he loves Mary, but Jack reveals that he loves Sylvia and shows David the locket as proof of her feelings for him. But the picture falls out – on the back is a note to David – and, after refusing to give it back to Jack, David rips it up to protect his friend from the truth that would hurt him. This causes a rift between the two as they're called off to battle.After they've left, Lt. Cameron notices that David has gone without his teddy bear; he picks it up and rushes out to the field but is too late to return it to him, the planes have already taken off. The men are charged with shooting down a couple of enemy observation balloons. But before they've gotten close enough to take these out, David notices that four German fighters will soon intercept them, so he aggressively engages them while an unawares Jack proceeds towards their assigned targets. David is able to successfully eliminate two of their four opponents before he's shot down, and Jack is able to destroy the balloons.But David survives his crash landing and an assault by a German army patrol. He makes his way to the enemy's runway and steals a plane. He then attacks the field to prevent any pursuers from taking flight. Unfortunately, Jack sees the plane as an enemy fighter as David tries to return back to base and shoots down the German fighter without realizing that his friend is its pilot.The airplane crashes into a house and Jack decides to land nearby to get its tail insignia as a souvenir from the war. He then discovers that he's all but killed his best friend; they exchange a few words before David dies in Jack's arms.Returning home a hero, Jack goes to the Armstrong home to apologize and return the teddy bear. David's mother forgives Jack, who returns home to find that Mary still adores him. The two sit on the old hotrod and watch a shooting star before they embrace one another.

andrestorres12 This was the first movie to earn an Oscar for best movie. i think that it really is worthy of the award. It has a lot of interesting points, the movie is action filled and the story is very exciting. the Acting is far from the quality of actors that we have now in the 21st century, but its amazing what this people was able to do without sound. The characters are well defined and you really connect with them. one thing that impressed me is that this movie doesn't have "bad guys", just normal people in a really bad situation, like the war. The special effects are just another bright part of the movie. Its amazing how almost a hundred years ago they were able to make special effects as good as you can see in this movie: the explosions, the airplanes flying, the compositions, this was an aspect that surprised me. I didn't think that something so elaborate could be done until decades later, but they were able to accomplish great special effects in that time. if you are going to watch a silent movie, let it be this one.

Lee Eisenberg William A. Wellman's "Wings" is now remembered as the very first movie to win an Academy Award, and the only silent winner until "The Artist". Focusing on some men sent to fight in World War I, it takes an undeniably patriotic view of the war: the heroic Americans gallantly go after the cruel Germans. And of course the movie doesn't miss a chance to show off Clara Bow; I bet that the sight of her helped a lot of boys become men back in the 1920s.However, there are some other things that the movie shows that I would say deserve more attention. During the past year or two, the hundredth anniversary of the first global war has drawn questions about the war. An important scene early in the movie shows a German-American man enlisting in the army, only to face discrimination for his German background. This happened a lot in the US during World War I, encouraged by Woodrow Wilson's fanatical nativism. Elia Kazan's "East of Eden" also features a scene set during World War I in which a German-American gets attacked as "the enemy". The most pronounced instance of this was the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.Later in the movie, some characters are discussing things that have happened in the war. One of them says "That's war." Indeed, what befell the individuals is characteristic of war. The horror that occurred on the battlefield only scratches the surface of the damage that WWI did. Not only did it senselessly kill millions of people and create a lost generation, but the Versailles Negotiations imposed reparations on Germany that set the stage for Hitler's rise to power. On top of that, Wilson (a dyed-in-the-wool racist) refused to listen to a young Ho Chi Minh, setting the stage for the Vietnam War. The division of the Middle East cut off Armenia from Mt. Ararat (after the Armenians had already suffered a genocide at the hands of the Ottomans), while the Kurds, Yazidis and Palestinians didn't even get their own countries.As for the movie, I thought that it did a good job with the battlefield scenes. The heroification weakens the movie, but the cinematography is some of the most impressive that I've ever seen. I guess that I recommend it as a look at old-style cinema.