Steel wings

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Movie
German title Steel wings
Original title Wings
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1927
length 139 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director William A. Wellman
script John Monk Saunders ,
Hope Loring ,
Louis D. Lighton
production Lucien Hubbard ,
BP Schulberg
music John Stepan Zamecnik
camera Harry Perry
cut E. Lloyd Sheldon
occupation

Wings made of steel is an American war film by William A. Wellman from 1927. On the threshold of the age of the sound film, the production company Paramount Pictures brought it out both in silence and with orchestral music preserved on optical soundtrack along with sound effects. At the first Academy Awards in 1929, Wings won the Oscar for Best Picture.

action

The year is 1917. Jack Powell is a young man who loves fast cars and dreams of becoming a pilot. His neighbor is Mary Preston, who is madly in love with him, but he doesn't seem to notice. He in turn loves Sylvia Lewis, who is in a relationship with the rich David Armstrong.

When the US enters World War I , the two young men volunteer for the American Flying Corps, where they become friends. While the two fight numerous dogfights over France, Mary Preston volunteers for the Women's Motor Corps of the Red Cross to get over Jack and also ends up in France.

One day all vacationers will be called to the front for the big offensive. Mary found Jack's name on a list in Paris. She finds him at the Folies Bergère in the company of a beautiful French woman, but the young man is so drunk that he does not recognize Mary. She borrows the dress of a dancer and stretches it out for the French woman. In the hotel room, Jack only sleeps off his intoxication.

During a final major attack by the US armed forces, David is shot down behind the German lines. German infantry want to take him prisoner, but he does not surrender and when he is shot, he plunges into a river and fakes his death. The German aviator Captain Kellermann drops a message over the English airfield about the downing and the death of the pilot.

The next day Jack, thirsting for revenge, fired at the ground troops behind the front for lack of enemy aircraft and caused a bloodbath. As he is already on the way back, he discovers a single German plane flying in the same direction. It's David, who has meanwhile stolen a German airplane and escaped his pursuers. But Jack doesn't recognize him. He only sees the enemy emblem , shoots down the supposed German and lands near the wreck to cut off the cross emblem as a trophy from the tail unit. Infantry has now taken care of the dying pilot. A French woman asks Jack and he realizes with horror that he has killed his friend.

Jack returns home and is celebrated as a hero. The visit to David's parents is not as bad as feared. The grieving parents absolve Jack of his guilt, as David and the French did before. So be the war.

Ultimately, Jack and Mary find each other. Jack confesses his little mistake in France and she forgives him without mentioning that she was the certain lady herself. So the war ends well for these two at least.

background

William A. Wellman during his war service in 1917

Wings was admitted between September 7, 1926 and April 7, 1927 in Bexar County, Texas, Camps Bullis and Stanley, San Antonio, Texas, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona; the aerial footage was shot in Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas. Director William Wellman was a pilot himself in World War I. Hundreds of small actors were hired for the film; Over 300 pilots were involved in the aerial photos. It took six weeks to edit and prepare for the performance.

Wings was shown as a preview in San Antonio, Texas on May 19, 1927. It premiered at the Criterion Theater in New York City on August 12, 1927. It was reviewed by Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times on August 13, 1927. The film was shown all over Europe. It ran in France, Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Sweden and Finland, and overseas in Argentina, Brazil and Japan. In Germany and Austria it was also published under the title “wings made of steel”.

The theme song for Wings by JS Zamecnik was also a hit in Europe. It appeared, played by various bands and provided with a German text, also on German gramophone records:

  • Homocord 4-3090 (TC568, A 29.4.29) Fliegerlied (JSZamecnik) from the movie "Wings". Lud Gluskin Orchestra.
  • Odeon O-5824 b (Be 7898) "Wings" (aviator, brave aviator) Aviator song from the Paramount film of the same name (JSZamecnik). Dajos Béla dance orchestra , refrain singing: Robert Koppel , aufgen. Early 1929
  • Electrola EG 1125 (BL4820-1) "Wings" (Fliegerlied) (JSZamecnik) Marek Weber and his orchestra. Berlin, February 1929

Technical features

In addition to silent copies, Wings was also available for hire in a copy with an optical soundtrack. It was recorded according to the “Kinegraphone” method of General Electric, which was later called RCA Photophone, and, in addition to the orchestral accompaniment by JS Zamecnik, also contained incident noises, but no dialogues.

Some passages were recorded using the early “Magnascope” widescreen method, which was used in James Cruze's film Old Ironsides as early as 1926 . For this purpose, special projection walls were developed for the cinemas, which also let the sound from the loudspeakers behind them pass through.

The copies were viraged. In the aerial combat scenes, flames and explosions were artificially colored in the picture using Max Handschiegl's method.

Reviews

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Wings is considered to be one of the best aviator films of all time and was shot in nine months with an enormous budget of two million US dollars for the time. For the first time, Hollywood worked with the Army for this production, which gave massive support to the filming. As a result, the flight and battle scenes have become so realistic and spectacular that it has long been believed that Wellman used original footage from the World War.

Awards

At the Academy Awards in 1929, Wings was the first film to receive the Oscar for “ Best Film ” and “Engineering Effects” from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . Since the first sound film was released in the same year with The Jazz Singer , Wings and the film Sunrise, which was also released in 1927, have been the only silent films for decades to have received the “Best Film” award. It was not until 2012 when the 84th Academy Awards were presented, “The Artist”, another silent film in this category. In 1997 it was accepted into the National Film Registry .

Others

Many elements of the film are groundbreaking and have been reused in other films. Several aerial combat scenes are almost identical to those in Battle in the Clouds and Flyboys - heroes of the air , and the little teddy bear of a pilot carried as a good luck charm can be seen again in Flyboys .

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ↑ cf. Internet Movie Database / locations: [1]
  2. ↑ cf. movie review: wings (1927) THE SCREEN; The Flying Fighters. By MORDAUNT HALL. Published: August 13, 1927, p. 10 [2]
  3. ↑ cf. Imd / releaseinfo [3]
  4. ↑ audio sample cf. youtube [4]
  5. ↑ cf. Advertising with marvelous synchronized sound effects and Magnascope screen projection on the poster at bp1.blogger.com [5]
  6. ↑ cf. silentera [6]  : “Magnascope sequences. Color-tinted and hand-tinted prints. General Electric Kinegraphone (later called RCA Photophone) sound-on-film sound system (music and sound effects added for 1927 sound rerelease) ” , Jan-Christopher Horak at filmlexikon.uni-kiel.de [7]
  7. ↑ cf. Advertisement at vitaphone blogspot [8]
  8. ↑ the Handschiegl color process , cf. Gerd Koshofer at filmlexikon.uni-kiel.de [9] , Martin Reinhart: Series of articles on color film, published in Media Biz magazine [10]