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Scott Reviews William Wellman’s Wings [Masters of Cinema Blu-ray Review]

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It’s easy for more obstinate cinephiles to look to the 1927/1928 Academy Awards, its first year, as the moment at which Oscar, and thus mainstream moviegoing, surrendered itself to emotional epics rather than more artistically vital, auteur-driven films. F.W. Murnau’s superb Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (already available in the Masters of Cinema collection) won the award for Unique and Artistic Production. William Wellman’s Wings won the award for Outstanding Picture. Both were seen as equally important. The next year, Unique and Artistic Production was stricken from the ceremony, and it was retroactively decided that Wings was the true Best Picture winner.

Now, for those disinclined towards the Oscars to begin with, this can be a rather bolstering story. After all, Sunrise is this boldly innovative portrait of a marriage at a crossroads imbued with striking special effects and expressionist imagery. Wings is a historical epic with a rather stock, sentimental love story at the center. But both classifications undermine each. Because Sunrise is also, for all its artistry, a very emotionally-driven film, and Wings, for all its populist appeal, is really, really, really, really elaborately directed, keeping the camera in almost constant movement in ways that most directors then or now couldn’t or wouldn’t dare, and hardly light on the special effects itself. It’s not just that it’s immediately evident what so won audiences over in 1927 (so much so that it played for over a year in a first-run New York theater) – it’s just as clear why the Oscars chose this kind of film to represent the film industry. It’s so good, it makes all the shabby, ostensibly “important” but obviously bullshit Oscar contenders and even winners worthwhile, just so we could have this one movie that is this good.


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Charles “Buddy” Rogers is the supposed star of the picture – as Jack Powell, he carries us through the front lines of World War I, both literal and emotional. He and his best friend set aside their shared desire for the town belle as they ship off to war together, learn to fly alongside one another, sharing in the victories, defeats, leaves, and everything that comes along with these kind of narratives. Rogers is very good in the movie, don’t get me wrong; unafraid to appear naive, pathetic, or misguided, his more heroic moments pop all the more. But anyone who sees this picture will have just one name on their lips – Clara Bow, Clara Bow, Clara Bow.

I wrote about the astoundingly talented Ms. Bow about a month back, how she can turn a so-so picture into something incredibly watchable and joyous. So, if we take that as an assumed starting point, just imagine the pleasure of seeing her in a Great movie! Like the film itself, she works within a sort of heightened reality, appearing at once entirely like a projection of the dream factory and yet feeling completely authentic to herself, first and foremost, and loosely to whatever sense of a “character” she could be said to be playing. The “Girl Next Door” type has been so run into the ground, but there’s something so odd and specifically endearing about Mary, even apart from her Clara Bow-ness. She’s not simply waiting at home for a letter from her sweetheart – she’s part of the war effort, dammit, out there in uniform, and arguably more committed to it, than her beau.


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The ways in which Wellman presents her – leisurely driving an army truck along Parisian streets, hunched on top of a child’s bicycle, preening with her newly-found gowns, perched above Jack, gazing down upon him…this is not the type of woman we see much in classic cinema, neither defined by her brash sexuality nor her determinist, almost matronly endurance. Nor is she the often-found Pre-Code working girl, just trying to catch a decent break in a man’s world. That she was something of America’s sweetheart is plainly obvious; she serves her country reflexively, without an especially pronounced sense of patriotism, and she longs for the boy who mostly doesn’t take the time to notice her. Who can’t relate to this woman? Anything more defining would get in the way, butter her up with a lot of qualities a lesser actress would require to convey the character. Bow needs none of that. She just needs a camera. That she gets the best there is here is what makes the film a masterpiece.

Masters of Cinema renders that camera spectacularly in their new (Region-B locked) Blu-ray edition of Paramount’s classic film. I saw this restoration at the Academy’s gorgeous Samuel Goldwyn Theater here in Los Angeles, and needless to say, what holds up on their massive 50-foot screen certainly looks mighty attractive on a Blu-ray. Depth is a little thin, and the film certainly shows its age, but it displays remarkable clarity, beautiful contrast, and doesn’t run into any of the problems that sometimes plague silent films in the conversion to high-definition. They’ve maintained all the wonderful speed-ramping that Wellman and his cameramen employed in the fight and party scenes while retaining the unhurried beauty of the dramatic scenes. It’s tremendous work all around, worthy of the film it represents.


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The film gives the option of two scores – one orchestral score composed by J.S. Zamecnik and another more organ-centric version by Gaylord Carter. Neither casts the film in a substantially different light; from what I sampled of each, they both hit come at the emotional and dramatic beats the same way, just with slightly different notes. I preferred the Zamecnik overall, as it keeps the film’s lively, youthful feel, though your mileage may vary.

The on-disc special features will sound familiar to anyone who owns Paramount’s Blu-ray edition from two years ago. A half-hour featurette goes through the basic motions of a making-of doc, while another tackles the nature of aerial combat in World War I. A final one looks at the restoration of the film. Those latter two run a little less than 15 minutes apiece, so you can be in and out of the supplements in less than an hour with quite a lot more knowledge than that with which you entered.


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If you already own that Paramount disc, it’s probably not going to be a very welcome thing to hear that it’s worth buying all over again just for the included booklet, but, well, Masters of Cinema knows their business, and when it comes to supplements, their business is booklets. You get a lovely, rather esoteric essay by Gina Telaroli, and best of all, a very cool interview with Wellman that Scott Eyman conducted for Focus on Film near the filmmaker’s death, and a great chunk of the man’s autobiography than concerns the making of Wings. Wellman was a pilot himself, fought in the war depicted here, and it’s amusing to read him speak of the disparity with the way the war was talked about with the actual reality, when he would do so much to perpetuate the rather romantic image of the combat in this very film. But that is no matter. Even in his old age, he speaks very fondly of his collaborators, especially Gary Cooper (whose small scene in this film left quite an impact on his career), and has that great sort of raconteur spirit that carried so many of these Old Hollywood directors. I could read their words all day; unlike many modern directors, they knew their legacy was in better hands the more lively and larger-than-life they seemed, not how inoffensive and humble they could make themselves sound.

Masters of Cinema’s release of Wings is an easy one to recommend – a spectacular film, truly deserving of the honors bestowed upon it and a much better legacy, is presented here in equally fine form.


Scott Nye

Scott Nye loved movies so much, he spent four years at Emerson College earning a career-free degree in Media Studies. Now living in Los Angeles, he's trying to put that to some sort of use. OFCS member, film writer, day-tripper.