The first Academy Awards Ceremony was held in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on May 16th, 1929, and it honored movies released between August 1st, 1927 and August 1st, 1928. The winners had actually been announced three months prior to the ceremony.  There are many other ways in which the Academy handed out its awards differently in its early days, but the focus of this piece is on its first winner for Outstanding Picture (the Academy would change the name of the award 4 times, finally settling on Best Picture in 1961), Wings.

Wings premiered on August 12th, 1927 and played for 63 weeks in first run theaters. I’m going to say that again. It played for 63 weeks in first run theaters, and then went to second run theaters. Wings played in first run theaters for nearly 15 months, and was, by all measures, a huge success for its day. Clara Bow received the headline credit as Mary, the girl next door, even though her role was more of a supporting one. She was the prototypical 20’s flapper, and even though she was only 22 when Wings was released, she had already appeared in 40 films since 1922, and was one of the biggest stars of the decade. Starring with her were Charles “Buddy” Rogers as Jack and Richard Arlen as David. Both men were big stars in their own right, who were later able to make the transition to sound film, and had long, successful careers.

Wings is also the only silent film to take home the Best Picture Award until The Artist joined it more than 8 decades later.

As for the film itself, I found it to be very entertaining and surprisingly sophisticated. I had never seen it before, which is only notable because I took an American Silent Film class while I attended USC, and this film was not a part of the curriculum. However, another Academy Award winner from that year was on the curriculum. That film was Sunrise, which is a film a lot more people had heard of, and took home an equivalent award that year for most Unique and Artistic Production. The awards would be combined into one the following year.

Now that I’ve seen both films I have to say that Wings is the better of the two. It certainly has the most linear storyline and is a much more dramatic film as well. It’s about two small town boys who are rivals for the affections of the same girl, but grow into men after they become pilots in World War I. This film came out long before Syd Field or Christopher Vogler or Blake Snider or Robert McKee wrote their individual opuses on screenwriting and story structure, but is has a solid 3-Act structure as well as a well-defined Hero’s Journey. Jack is the main character of the film and he doesn’t recognize that Mary (Clara Bow), the girl who lives next door, is madly in love with him. Jack only has eyes for Sylvia, a rich girl from the other side of town, who happens to be in love with David, who comes from a family more in line with her social standing. The Ordinary World sees Jack and David competing for Sylvia’s affections as Mary tries in vain to get Jack to notice her. Jack doesn’t see that Sylvia is more interested in David. In his self absorbed world, Jack thinks that a photo of herself that Sylvia has left in a locket is for him, when Sylvia actually intended it for David. Jack tells her he’s going to keep it for luck, and David’s good luck charm ends up being a small stuffed bear that his mother had kept since he was a child.

Jack and David Cross the First Threshold and go into the Special World of World War I when they go to flight school. Years of rivalry boil over and they get into a fist fight, but that fight shows each the mettle that the other carries, and that turns into an unbreakable bond. They arrive at their tent and meet Cadet White (played by Gary Cooper), who is a veteran flyer and seems like he’ll be a mentor to them. However, White is killed that very day in a crash. Our heroes are undaunted, however, and they learn how to fly and become the best pilots in the army.

The first half of Act II shows Jack and David tearing it up and earning metals and accommodations for  their bravery and skill. While on leave in Paris, Mary, who has joined the war effort as an ambulance driver, sees Jack, drunk and fraternizing with other women. She’s heard that all leaves have been cancelled and all men are required to get back to the front under penalty of court martial. In his state, Jack doesn’t realize that the girl next door is helping save his career and his life.

Back at the line, Jack and David have one more confrontation over Sylvia. David has received letters from Sylvia telling him that Jack thinks he’s the object of her affection, but it’s really David who holds a special place in her heart. Thinking that David has betrayed him, Jack refuses to talk to him before they take off for what will be the last great battle of the War. We’re now in Act III.

Each man shows his heroism as David is shot down protecting a bomber. He manages to escape capture and steals a German plane in an attempt to get home. However, seeing the plane, an wanting revenge for his friend, Jack shoots the plane down. He lands and sees that he’s actually shot down Dave, who dies in his arms. Jack then goes through Dave’s personal things and sees the letters that Sylvia wrote to him. He realizes that David was being a good friend by not telling him about Sylvia’s true feelings, and he has his own epiphany about with whom he belongs.

The Return With the Elixir shows Jack going home, a man now, and receiving a hero’s welcome. He finds David’s parents and asks forgiveness. David’s mother tells Jack that he didn’t kill David. Rather it was the War. The film ends with David finding Mary and the two of them finally having the kiss that she’d been longing for.

This is a film with a complex plot, a series of subplots, intricate character relationships and an anti-war theme. There is depth to the characters and the main character grows and learns from his mistakes and ends the picture as a different person than when the picture started. If you haven’t seen it, and you’re an aspiring writer, this film can be very instructive on how to write an engaging story that you have to show without relying too heavily on dialogue.

One of Silent Films’ great learning tools for screenwriters is the fact that almost everything had to be shown rather than told.

I’d like to take a moment and discuss one more aspect of this films. The dogfight sequences are very impressive. They actually had stunt pilots fly in the sequences, and they did something very interesting when a plane was shot down. The plane would eject black smoke, and then the film makers painted fire directly on to the film. This was a technique that I learned about in my animation classes at USC,  and the film makers used it in this film in order to achieve a level of believability in their special effects. We were still decades away from even the types of effects that made Star Wars popular, let alone modern CG FX. I was very surprised when I saw this, and I can only imagine the affect it must have had on audiences of the late 1920’s to see that type of film making, because while the rest of the film is still black and white, the fire is bright yellow.

Did the Academy get it right?

I think they did. Certainly Sunrise could have won this award as well, but it wasn’t even nominated, as it received an equivalent award the same year. Two other films were nominated for Outstanding Picture. They were The Racket and Seventh Heaven. I’ve never seen either of those films, so I can’t comment on whether or not they were more deserving of the award. I can say, however, that based on seeing Wings it is a fine film and I would recommend that anyone interested in silent film should see it. I would also say that anyone interested in seeing a film that is instructive on quality storytelling should see this film as well.