Wings

William Wellman, Paramount, 1927. Charles Rogers and Richard Arlen are small-town friends who train as pilots, love the same Clara Bow, and meet again over France. Wellman, an actual flyer, staged dogfights with cameras bolted to aircraft; the Saint-Mihiel land battle used infantry and trenches on Texas ground. It took Outstanding Picture at the first Academy Awards, the commercial prize beside Sunrise’s artistic one. About $2 million, the figure the studio used. Bow is the girl next door in a mechanic’s suit. The wings are real airframes, not paintings.