A Closer Look At Wings (1927)
References to Wings (1927) are most commonly trotted out during awards seasons, as a bit of obligatory trivia answering the question: “What was the first movie to be given the Oscar for Best Picture?” Usually this is as far as the trivia will go, which is a shame. For Wings was one of the most dynamic, gloriously-directed films of the late silent era, just as exciting and impressive today as it was a century ago.
Wings was created during the mid-1920s revival of World War I films, kicked off by the incredible success of MGM’s The Big Parade (1925). After 1918 there had been relatively few films set during the Great War, perhaps due to public fatigue or perhaps because some time was still needed to heal the wounds. However, while people in the optimistic atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties may have wanted to move on from that sad era, they certainly had no intention of forgetting it.
Paramount would put director William A. Wellman in charge of the big-budget project, which was based on an unfinished novel by John Monk Saunders. A fast worker and a dynamic personality, “Wild Bill” was a descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and had even served as a fighter pilot during the war. He walked with a permanent limp due to being shot down by German anti-aircraft guns in 1918. Wings would not be an easy production for him, as it involved hundreds of extras and real-life recreations of aerial combat scenes which were highly weather-dependent, but his qualifications for such a story were undeniable.
Richard Arlen and Buddy Rogers were chosen to be the main leads David and Jack, small town youths who enlist to be fighter pilots in WWI. Arlen had been a fighter pilot in Canada’s Royal Flying Corps during the war and would bring a steady authenticity to his role. The wholesome young Rogers, born and raised in Kansas and advertised as “America’s Boyfriend,” would undergo pilot training for the film’s authentic aerial combat scenes.
The story of Wings would be tweaked to include Paramount’s biggest star at the time, the vivacious flapper icon Clara Bow. The saucer-eyed Bow, famously dubbed the “‘It’ Girl” by the influential romance novelist Elinor Glyn, had starred in numerous Jazz Age hits such as The Plastic Age (1925) and Kid Boots (1926). Her girl-next-door character Mary Preston provided a love triangle for Arlen and Rogers and her image was used prominently on the film’s posters and lobby cards.
One actor hired to play a minor role would go on to fame and fortune: Gary Cooper. He played Cadet White, David and Jack’s tent mate in Germany who’s killed in a flight training accident the same day they met. While his screen time was only a few minutes, he was a charismatic presence and his character’s sudden demise was a deeply effective way to convey the shocking cost of the war.
Wings was dedicated “to those young warriors of the sky whose wings are folded about them forever,” as the opening title cards state. Wellman was determined to do them justice. Many of the battle scenes were shot on several acres of land in San Antonio, Texas that were transformed into trenches and pockmarked with faux shellholes. The biplanes used in the film were repainted Thomas-Morse MB-3s and Curtiss P-1 Hawks, many obtained with assistance from Washington. Thousands of soldiers were loaned from the Army as extras, and some of the pilots were from the U.S. Army Air Corps. Wellman directed the large-scale battle scenes capably, often detonating any explosives himself. He also wasn’t afraid to clash with the military personnel who were brought in to supervise the production, insisting on being the one who was ultimately in charge.
Filming the dogfights proved easier said than done, since clouds were needed for the aerial scenes and the stubbornly clear skies made the production drag on for many weeks. As he explained patiently to Paramount, Wellman wanted to have clouds in the background to contrast with the moving planes to show just how swiftly they were flying. There was also the question of how to film Arlen and Rogers as they flew their planes. Cameras would be fixed to the planes in front of their faces, and both actors would have to not only fly the rickety biplanes but operate the cameras while acting in the air.
Rogers would be trained to fly by Lieutenant Hoyt Vandenberg (who would one day become a four-star general in World War II). The young actor didn’t have a strong stomach for flying and would frequently get sick when he landed, but would always gamely climb back in the plane for another takeoff. Vandenberg would fly with Rogers for his first few aerial scenes and operate the camera while he gained more experience at the controls.
The camera innovations didn’t end with the aerial scenes. The film’s most famous shot today was set in Paris’s famous Folies Bergère and had the camera appear to float through a number of tables occupied by guests, zooming in on a seated Buddy Rogers. This was achieved by fastening a dolly to a track on the ceiling and having the camera operator lie on his stomach on a platform underneath. As it smoothly passed over the tables, the extras sprang back just as it went between them. One amusing bit of trivia is that Rogers, shown getting drunk on champagne, was literally drunk during the scene. Since Rogers had never had alcohol before, Wellman decided to simply give him real champagne.
Wings would be released to considerable excitement and acclaim. It premiered in New York City and would run for an incredible 63 weeks before trickling down to the smaller theaters. Over the next few years its box office is thought to have totalled an impressive $3.6 million, especially considering ticket prices at the time. It was also the first film to receive the industry’s highest honor: the Academy Award for Best Picture, awarded in 1929 and chosen from 1927-28 films. It narrowly escaped sharing the honor with F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise (1927), chosen for the short-lived category of Unique and Artistic Production. It was retroactively decided that only having a Best Picture made the most sense.
Today, the sprawling battlefields and heart-stopping dogfights of Wings have aged phenomenally well–indeed, they seem hardly to have aged at all. And as the decades keep marching by, it has an uncanny ability to make a war that is often overshadowed by WWII seem far more real. We can understand in a general sense how the Great War of 1914-18 changed history, but works of art like Wings help us understand on a personal level the sacrifices of those countless soldiers, pilots and other brave folks of the past.
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–Lea Stans for Classic Movie Hub
You can read all of Lea’s Silents are Golden articles here.
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
