Wings

Wings (1927)

Runtime: The restored version I saw was 144 minutes long

Directed by: William A. Wellman

Starring: Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Richard Arlen, Clara Bow, El Brendel, Jobyna Ralston

From: Paramount

A mutual on Letterboxd inspired me to finally watch this late last night. It's not great but I thought it was pretty good. I explain it all below: 

I had the time last night so I figured that I would act on my inspiration of seeing a mutual here review this not that long ago and while I don't plan on ever seeing any of the movies that won Best Picture at the Oscars, at least I should see the one that won it first, you know.

The plot isn't too complicated: two young men in a small town (Jack Powell and David Armstrong) become World War I pilots. They both love a girl named Sylvia but Mary loves Jack and she's the literal girl next door. We follow their escapades both on the ground and in the air, with plane battles that are still great even 9 decades later. There also happens to be some comedy (not all of which works) and some melodrama too. Not everything in this movie works but thankfully a lot of it still does, especially the aerial stuff.

What helps is that the performances are by and all fine. This helps when the story isn't so strong. The highlight was the effervescent Clara Bow as the lead girl; she lights up the screen whenever she appears. Those awful rumors about her-especially the one w/ the USC football team-are not only gross but they sadly ruined her career. That segment in Paris where Powell and Armstrong are both hammered and she has to get them to return to base is pretty silly and yet she did a swell job with what she had to do. Oh, and the homoerotic nature of Jack and David at times made me think that Top Gun wasn't the first American military flying movie with such things!

The movie isn't great but it's still pretty good as despite it being over 2 hours it was an easy watch to me as it was a compelling story, even with the cliches. It reminds me that I should watch some more movies about World War I, even if a few of them are quite pessimistic and have a strong anti-war message.