"D'you know what you can do when you see a shooting star?"
Two boys from the same town become pilots in the Great War. They battle the enemy over France and each other over a girl back home. Jack (Charles 'Buddy' Rogers) and David (Richard Arlen) both love Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston), while Mary (Clara Bow), the girl next door, secretly pines for Jack and joins the ambulance corps to be near him.
Wings (1927) astonished moviegoers with wide-screen "Magnascope" and breathtaking effects achieved filming the actors in-flight from fuselage mounted cameras. Adding authenticity, director William Wellman, writer John Monk Saunders and Arlen all served as fliers during the War. The United States Army enthusiastically loaned Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation hundreds of aircraft, vast amounts of Texas real estate and an infantry division, over and above their astronomical $2,000,000 budget.
Wings shared the first Best Picture Academy Award with F.W. Murnau's Sunrise (1927). Roy Pomeroy also won the first Oscar for Special Effects.
The 17th Annual San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents William Wellman's epic of the air, Wings, featuring live musical accompaniment performed by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra with Foley sound effects by Ben Burtt.
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