Wings (1927) (BD) [Blu-ray]

I found my Birthday present! WINGS (1927), is not only the FIRST winner of the Best Picture Academy Award, it may be the BEST film to hold that title, and I say that knowing that  Casablanca , The Hurt Locker , and  The Last Emperor (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray ] all hold the statue too. There have been some stinkers dubbed "Best Picture" in the past, ( Shakespeare in Love [Blu-ray ] beating  Saving Private Ryan (Sapphire Series) [Blu-ray ]???  The Greatest Show on Earth  over  High Noon (Two-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition) ?! Spare us all) but this is not one of them.Even supporters of the film, writing reviews here at Amazon, can't seem to resist taking shots at Wings' plot, but I'm here to tell you it is just fine, even solidly written. Some reviewers don't sound like they have seen this movie in a long time, or if they have, they slept through it. For one thing, the "Love Triangle" is not as convoluted or hard to grasp as others have implied:Jack Powell (Buddy Rogers) has a crush on one Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston), the local beauty queen. She finds this cute and indulges it a little bit--actually too much. But she is quite sincerely in love with someone else, David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) a well-off local boy who isn't quite able to figure out how to tell Jack to butt-out because it doesn't involve money. The wild card in all of this (literally and figuratively) is Mary Preston (Clara Bow), who lives next door to Jack and has been mooning over him since she was a little girl.That's the whole dynamic. I have no idea what someone was thinking when they suggested Mary expressed any feelings for David (She never does). Some have said they can't believe Jack would go for Sylvia with Mary next door. I see their point, because the casting of Clara Bow in her role is like having Kirsten Dunst living next door and not noticing. The problem is, Jack isn't SUPPOSED to notice Mary until the end, when he has experienced the war and realizes that everything he wants is right there at home where he belongs. In the beginning he is all about Fast Cars and the Trophy Girls.So, the plot thickens as the US gets dragged into World War I and both Jack and David sign up as pilots. Naturally each of them heads to Sylvia's house to say good-bye. Sylvia prepared a locket with her picture in it for David, but Jack sees it first. This scene is a great display of awkwardness wrapped in etiquette, especially when Sylvia tries to let go of Jack's hand. Jack takes the locket from her, and, this being more than she can stand, Sylvia almost gets the words out to tell him the truth when David gets there. At this point Jack turns on the macho-factor, and he is so gleeful about rubbing Sylvia's locket in David's face that he doesn't even notice she never kissed him good-bye.Sylvia makes up for David's loss of the locket with some tender words and some passionate kissing--no mystery where her feelings lie--and the three of them head off for war. Three, because Mary goes too, as a nurse. Another complaint about this film and it's plot has been that Clara Bow wasn't given enough to do, shunted off into a side part even though she got billing as the Leading Lady, but I just don't see it. Her part was as big as any Romantic Interest in most movies out there; a good example for comparison would be Kathleen Quinlan's roll in Apollo 13. Most of her scenes were not shared with Tom Hanks, but she turned in an emotional and Oscar-nominated performance nonetheless.The air battles in this film have never been topped anywhere. Ever. And that includes anything involving aliens, fighter jets, or a galaxy far, far, away. The information that the actors flew their own planes is misleading. Actors couldn't do what these pilots do. The stunt flying is by the US Army Air Corps in Texas (!) where the movie was filmed (I dare you to have guessed that on your own). What Rogers and Arlen do is all their own close-ups, flying the plane as they careen and dive. When the camera ran out of film (or the planes ran out of gas) a stunt pilot from the Army would pop up and land the plane.The resolution of the story I won't comment further on, except to say that it is extremely moving and does highlight the madness of war, especially the kind of war WW1 was. I support military action for just causes, but everything has a cost and Wings lays that cost bare. These were issues being struggled over long before Vietnam, just in case you thought Hippies invented protest.OK, two other responses to the "plot mongers" on this review board: (1) After complaining that she didn't do enough, they insist that Mary's tactics in Paris were out of character. No they were not. Mary had to get Jack away from that "other woman" and get him his orders before he got court marshaled. She was not becoming a floozie, only dressing the part, and she paid the ultimate price for the risk she took. It also helped to stir up Jack's feelings about her in later scenes, and get him thinking. (2) Melodramatic? Sure. Unoriginal? Well... if you make that claim because you can guess what's coming or you've seen it all before, just ask yourself how old these movies are that you are comparing Wings to, and check WINGS' release date again. Maybe the plot-heist occurred in the other direction.Am sooo glad that WINGS is returning to state-of-the-art digital format in the form of a Bluray release, and that it has been so meticulously restored. I have been enamored with, and watching, this film since "state of the art" was Laserdisc and I was I was 13 (39 now). It shattered my little-boy prejudices against both black and white and silent films in one great blast of anti-aircraft fire, and I have been spreading its gospel ever since. You will not ever see a better World War 1 film.(This review is an adaption of my previous WINGS review from 2003. See that review here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R28G7R4X9FLVN2/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm)

This is an amazing movie to be filmed in the late 1920's; I can see why it was the first "Best Picture" Academy Award winner

Paramount took quite a bit of time to bring WINGS to DVD, but it was well worth the wait. It's a joy to see this landmark film as it was meant to be seen and heard.I say "heard" because silent films were rarely seen in silence. Large theaters in cities had full orchestras to play either a composed or compiled score for a major film like WINGS. Slightly smaller theaters would have a theater pipe organ. A theater organ is a very different thing from a church organ and is capable of some very realistic sound effects. Neighborhood theaters would have either a piano or a reed organ and the accompanist might make up a score as he/she went along using a personal repertoire of musical motifs appropriate to the action. Thus the experience of seeing any silent film varied depending on the music that was supplied. This DVD release offers both an orchestral and an organ score. Both are excellent. Watch them both and you'll notice the difference.Clara Bow has top billing in WINGS even though her character is barely necessary to the plot. She was Paramount's biggest star at the time and WINGS was their "big picture" for 1927. Nonetheless, she brings real charm to the role and her scenes are memorable. The Motion Picture Production Code was not yet a fact of life and Bow fans watching closely could catch a glimpse of her topless. Of course no one in 1927 could foresee the day when the pause button on a DVD player would allow viewers to appreciate Ms Bow's beauty at leisure.Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen are the male stars who carry most of the plot. Though both of them were fine actors, neither of them had previously starred in a big-budget film and neither would again. And then there's the bit part played by a promising young actor by the name of Gary Cooper. He has barely more than a minute of screen time, but it's a star-is-born minute.The real stars of WINGS are the planes. Director William Wellman and writer John Monk Saunders had been pilots in World War I and brought both their wartime experience and love of planes to the film. And they couldn't have done it without the help of the US Army. (There was no separate air force in those days.) Much of the location shooting was done in the vicinity of Fort Sam Houston and Kelly Field in Texas, and the battlefield for infantry fighting was constructed on adjoining land. Army pilots flew in most of the combat sequences, though Hollywood stunt pilots did the crack-ups. And they did crack up a lot of planes. These weren't miniature models as had been used in previous air combat films, rear-projection effects as would have been used in lower budget films or CGI effects as would be used today. They were real pilots crashing real planes at great risk to life and limb, to say nothing of great expense.Even the stars flew combat scenes. Arlen had served in the Royal Canadian Flying Corps, though he hadn't seen combat. Rogers learned to fly, though he got terribly airsick. Cinematographer Harry Perry hit upon the idea of attaching motorized cameras (most cameras in those days were hand-cranked) to the fuselages of the planes so that the pilots could be filmed with the sky or ground behind them. So, in many scenes, the actors are flying the planes, running the cameras and acting all at the same time. The result is fabulous. WINGS deserved its Oscar for Best Production as the Best Picture category was known in 1928. It also received the award for Engineering as special effects were called in those days.For WWI plane buffs there's even a Gotha bomber, the ultimate weapon of the day. Several shots both on the ground and in the air give a feel for the size of the Gotha as compared to the one-engine planes of the period. Even seeing a Gotha in a museum can't match that.In reading some reviews on Amazon I notice that some people have trouble getting comfortable with older films and particularly with silents. Please try to accept these films as the slightly different art form that they are, much as an opera is different from a play. They should not be colorized (though color tinting and detail painting is completely appropriate) and they should not have dialogue sound tracks grafted onto them. They have a poetry of their own. If one can't accept that then don't watch them, but don't suggest that they be butchered to fit modern tastes.One thing that even people who love silents often don't realize is that the original aspect ratio of these films is practically square, something in the range of 1.15:1. Over the decades these films were copied and recopied onto film stock with more rectangular ratios and we had to accept that as the price of seeing these great old films. But now many of the studios are releasing these films on DVD in their original aspect ratios. Sometimes, depending on the make of your equipment, this might require adjusting the aspect ratio of either your DVD player or your TV. Whether your screen has a 4:3 or a 16:9 aspect ratio you should have black bars on both sides of the picture, which should be almost square, in order to see it without distortion.

'It's a little long and somewhat melodramatic, but it won Best Picture in, I think, 1927, the first time it was awarded.

Perfect

Thank you and recommended.

Great movie. I think better than metropolis but I love both. They are two of my favorite silent movies. Both from 1927.

Buena calidad de imagen

Pour ma collection sur 14-18. Très content. (rareté).

Es justamente lo que buscaba

Der Fliegerfilm "Wings" (deutscher Titel: Flügel aus Stahl) aus dem Jahr 1927 gilt als einer der besten Werke in seinem Genre und wurde in neun Monaten mit einem für die damalige Zeit ungeheurem Budget von zwei Millionen Dollar gedreht. Zum ersten Mal arbeitete die Traumfabrik für diese aufwendige Produktion mit der US-Armee zusammen, die die Dreharbeiten massiv unterstützte. Als Folge dieser Zusammenarbeit sind die Flug- und Kampfszenen im Film auch heute noch derart realistisch und spektakulär anzusehen, dass die Zuschauer lange Zeit glaubten, Regisseur William A. Wellman hätte Originalaufnahmen aus dem 1. Weltkrieg dafür verwendet.Der Film erhielt den ersten Oscar als besten Film überhaupt - in dieser ersten Preisverleihung am 29. Mai 1929 hatte der Filmpreis seinen Namen "Oscar" noch nicht. "Wings" bekam noch einen zweiten Preis, in der Kategorie "Beste visuelle Effekte" wurde er Sieger.Neben der Optik sind die drei Hauptdarsteller Clara Bow, Charles Rogers und Richard Arlen ausschlaggebend für den Erfolg. Die drei jungen Schauspieler mit ihren unverbrauchten Gesichtern passen perfekt zu ihren Rollen und wem dies noch nicht genügt, der bekommt einen Gary Cooper in einer Nebenrolle noch dazu.Jack Powell (Charles Rogers) und David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) sind Rivalen in der derselben amerikanischen Kleinstadt und beide wetteifern um die Gunst der hübschen Syliva Lewis (Jobyna Ralston). Jack bemerkt dabei gar nicht, dass das genauso hübsche Nachbarsmädchen Mary (Clara Bow) ihn extrem anhimmelt. Die beiden jungen Männer melden sich beide als Kampfpiloten beim Army Air Service an. Ohbwohl Sylvia David liebt, kann sie Jack, so kurz vor seiner Einberufung, nicht die Wahrheit sagen und schenkt ihm eine Foto als Glücksbringer, das eigentlich für David gedacht war. Von Mary bekommt der attraktive Jack ebenfalls ein Foto mit. Davids Glücksbringer ist der Stoffbär seiner kindheit, den seine Mom (Hedda Hopper) für ihn all die Jahre aufgehoben hat. Er soll ihn bloß wiederbringen, meint die besorgte Mutter beim Abschied. Jack und David kommen in die selbe Abteilung und anfangs sind sie weiterhin nicht gut aufeinander zu sprechen, bis es zu einer Schlägerei kommt. Ab dieser Zeit werden die beiden unzertrennliche Freunde und hoffen beide die Kampfhandlungen mit der deutschen Armee erfolgreich bestehen zu können, um nach dem Krieg wieder nach Hause zurückzukehren..."Wings" ist allerdings auch in weiten Teilen sehr emotional und dramatisch und neben einem HappyEnd gibt es auch Leid und Tränen. Es ist ein beinahe schon sprechender Stummfilm mit tollen Kameraperspektiven und einer flüssigen Handlung, trotz der längeren Laufzeit von ca. 145 Minuten. Bei seinem Erscheinen war der Film ein großer Kassenschlager und speilte 3,6 Millionen Dollar ein. Ein Resultat, bei dem sich das recht hohe Budget von fast 2 Millionen Dollar für die Produzenten auszahlten.

per gli amanti del cinema muto come me questo film meriterebbe 10 stelle ! il film e un capolavoro assoluto con attori fantastici e che segna il debutto su grande schermo del mai dimenticato gary cooper...IL DVD e' strepitoso in tutti i sensi..restauro meraviglioso..extra interessantissimi...una vera perla ! COMPLIMENTI EUREKA VIDEO !!