Dramatic organ music and shots of flying bi-planes kick us off and, ah! Wings! I get it. I get it even more when the opening title card establishing the back story mentions one Charles Lindbergh, who is famous for having had a baby whom he mysteriously misplaced. Here, Lindbergh is being quoted from a speech he gave on June 12, 1927 paying “simple tribute to those who fell in the War.”(How cute, “the War”, as if it were the only one.) The date of this speech perplexed me: I recalled from my early Googling that Wings had offered up a preview of its charms in May of 1927, the month before that speech. Woah! The people who made this movie were prophets! Or time travelers! Or knew Lindbergh and/or his baby, and got the particulars of his speech ahead of time! Cool! Or… well, sure, maybe they just added that Lindbergh part later, prior to the film’s official premiere in August of ’27. That does make more sense. (I prefer the prophecy theory.)

Anyway, we open in a small town in 1917 (we know this because the title card says: “A small town -- 1917”) and we meet Jack Powell (Charles Rogers), a young lad who looks a bit like Reggie out of the Archie comic books. Jack has always longed to fly, and in fact his every day-dream features the whir of wings (we know this because the title card says: “Jack Powell had always longed to fly… in every day-dream he heard the whir of wings.”). Jack once saved his life-long neighbor, Mary Preston (Clara Bow), from a bonfire, and sometimes he regretted it (we know this because the title card says: “Mary Preston had always lived next door. Once Jack had picked her out of a bonfire--and sometimes he regre--okay, I’ll stop now. It’s just that silent film exposition is weird, y’know?).

Mary has it bad for Jack, and she prances over to pester him sorely. Jack, however, has a thing for Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston -- “Sylvia Lewis had an advantage over the small-town girls. She was a visitor from the city.” You can tell Sylvia is sophisticated because she plays the mandolin – silently.) Sylvia’s heart, in turn, belongs to the joyless, helmet-haired and over-privileged David Armstrong (Richard Arlen). Ah, nothing like a simple little love quadrangle to add drama to a movie with no spoken dialogue.

Also adding drama is a much more exciting plot development: WAR! (World War I, as we know it now. And isn’t the original always better than the sequel?) The Germans are causing trouble, so Jack, David and assorted other patriots sit for the Aviation Exams. (“Herman Schimpf? That’s a fine name to fight the Kaiser with!” the recruiting sergeant scoffs at the movie’s comic relief, only to be won over by his tattoo of the stars and stripes. So, not racist at all then, movie?) They soon head off to fight the good fight, but not before a bevy of lingering farewells: Mary’s tearful adieu to Jack is met with impressive disinterest (if ever a girl was in need of He’s Just Not That Into You, it is she); even David’s goodbye to his dog is more heartfelt, and as for the open-mouth kiss he gives his disconsolate mother… creeeepy.

"Yep, just off to do some figure eights after talking about dying..."

So, off they go to Top Gun, the best of the best… no, wait. That’s a different movie. We do, however, get a bit of a training montage (“They had come to fly -- only to learn that aviators are made on the ground! No wonder their lives were upside down!”) and Jack’s hate-on for David is positively Maverick/Iceman-like until they have an all-out scrap in boxing class and, in time-honored, bizarre male fashion, become fast friends. We are, by now, almost half an hour into a movie called Wings, and when the title card pops up saying “Jack and David began to believe they were never to see any real planes—” I could well imagine a 1920’s theater full of patrons contemplating suing for false advertising. There finally are planes, but before our novice pilots go up in one we meet Cadet White (who I was gonna say looks a lot like Gary Cooper, but it turns out actually is Gary Cooper, so I will refrain). White delivers himself of this inspiring speech: “Luck or no luck, when your time comes, you’re going to get it!” before popping off to get in some “figure eights before chow” with a jaunty salute. Oh, no, don’t worry Cadet White, you’re not about to die at all!

He dies.

There follows about 30 seconds of grieving before the young men are ordered to the “deadline” (which seems more than a little insensitive) for flying instruction. Oh, my! Seriously? There’s gonna actually be some flying in this movie? Patience, my friends. Patience. First, we need to see some maintenance and some propellers whirring and some last minute instructions given by an aggressively-mustachioed commander. But then, at last! The boys take to the skies at around minute forty of this aviation-based epic.

And they barely come down for what feels like an hour.

Okay, I understand why this would’ve been mind-blowingly cool. For the vast majority of people watching this in 1927, flying was nothing more than a fantasy; seats were ruinously expensive, if one could get them, and passenger jets were decades away. So glorying in the simulated dogfights of World War I era bi-planes on screen, even if from very odd perspectives -- either exceedingly distant, or frighteningly close -- all set to an organ score like something the Phantom of the Opera might have composed in his discordant youth, can only have been a heretofore unimagined thrill ride. And then there were the crashes! The equipment malfunctions! The “chivalry of these knights of the air”!

"Go take advantage of a drunk war hero? Yes, sir!"

In addition to the flying, we visit foxholes, confront medical emergencies and hey, it’s Mary! Mary’s back and looking cute in her Women’s Army Transport Corps uniform, but mostly we spend a goodly sixty minutes getting into and out of dangerously rickety looking planes and soaring through the air with the greatest of ease (these magnificent men in their flying machines). Jack becomes a hero, gets some leave and spends it in Paris (oh, yeah, all this is happening in France), “capital of the world’s gayety [sic]”, his carousing rivaling the Rat Pack’s, much to Mary’s gurning despair. She wins him over with a makeover, Sandy Olsen-style, but just when it looks like she’s about the Get Her Man (they’re alone in a hotel, she’s getting naked and I swear there’s a flash of breast -- the 20’s were indeed Roaring, it seems), he’s forced to go back to WAR, and she’s forced to go home, the hussy. Jack goes into denial over his feelings for the girl next door (“Look here, Dave… it’s Sylvia I love… and I believe she loves me!”) and then WAR, WAR, WAR, then David dies, then Jack becomes a hero again, then, hurrah, Victory! Jack gets a parade, Mary and Jack hook up (suck it, Sylvia!), the end.

So, what do I make of it, this first ever Best Picture Oscar winner? Well, Wings is long. I mean, Kevin Costner long. At 141 minutes, at times it feels like watching A Cure for Insomnia as shown on an old black and white television with broken contrast control and horizontal hold, across the room with the sound turned down. The sporadic title cards of dialogue are like closed captioning as rendered by a very lazy transcriber; it’s frustrating trying to read lips to make out what the characters are saying, and indeed, I bet if I could read lips I’d discover that they’re not even saying real words! If you’ve ever had the chance to experience a children’s ballet recital, in which tenets of mime like subtlety and nuance don’t really feature, you’ll have some idea of the quality of performance Wings offers up. It’s joyously absurd -- like the episode of Buffy when everyone lost their voices (“Hush”, 04.10) -- but conducted in all seriousness.

Was this the world's first same sex screen kiss? Very possibly. Sure, one of them is dead, but still.

The only silent movies I had ever seen prior to this were the slapstick comedies of Buster Keaton and the few briefly shown in Singin’ in the Rain -- plus, of course, Mel Brooks’ ingenious and side-splitting Silent Movie. But, almost in spite of myself, I became quite engrossed in the noiseless plight of love-struck Mary, and in Jack and Dave’s bromance, and – especially throughout the last half hour -- in the vanquishment of the Kaiser and his evil, sky-bound minions. (Secretly, of course, I was hoping this was a movie set in a small regional airport in which two engagingly cute and snarky brothers run a troublesome airline alongside several colorful employees, but alas.) Oh, I am become no aficionado of the silent film, and don’t necessarily recommend anyone who isn’t compelled to do so to rush out and find this one. However, I’m glad I watched Wings, if for nothing else than to see the famous Clara Bow, once known as “The It Girl” and who gets top billing here (and is, with Mary Pickford, the only silent-era actress name I recognize), in action. And I have to say, I’m just not sure what all the fuss was about. I mean, the woman pencils on her eyebrows!

If only she’d played the mandolin, then maybe I’d understand the appeal.

Rachel.