Drums beat, bugles called, lips were pressed to lips in parting.

Wings
William A Wellman 1927 USA
Starring: Clara Bow, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Richard Arlen

The silent war epic Wings won the first ever Best Picture Oscar, or Outstanding Production (a much better name) as it was then called, but is a hell of a lot more grim than you might expect of such a work. Even in its comic opening scenes dumb, patriotic Herman Schwimpf - a man whose main purpose in the film seems to be providing officers with someone to punch - has to overcome the flagrant and often violent racism of his superiors before he's allowed to wash out as a flyer and disappear to the mechanics core. This is pre-pre-Code Hollywood, an era when soldiers could spew blood as they're shot and intertitles could keep score in a dogfight as young men plummet to their deaths, their planes spectacularly imploding as they hit the ground and crash through churches. Likewise, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers' Jack is free to duff up waiters and hallucinate champagne bubbles rising from the wiggling bodies of gorgeous young women but still wins the hand of Clara Bow's lovely, peppy driver Mary, despite having been in love with someone else for the rest of the film. It's an odd stance but all the more interesting for its dark ambiguity, the whole film easily readable as an anti-war picture despite the glamour of its flying scenes. They're breathtaking by the way, Wellman having been given free rein (he was in the air force in WW1), the cast having been given flying lessons to add to the realism, and the accompanying musicians having been given pioneering synchronised special effects to work around. As such, there are several long sequences of skyward battle, the massive budget being put to good use. Perhaps the oddest thing about the film though is that Bow, then one of the biggest stars in the country, is criminally underused, relegated to not much more than a supporting player - as she herself put it "Wings is a man's picture and I'm just the whipped cream on top of the pie". It's a terrible shame because she lights up every scene she's in stealing the thunder of the two limited leading men at every opportunity (and seemingly without much effort). The film doesn't droop in any respect but you're still left wanting to see more of her when she departs halfway through. Even with her absence the last half hour is astonishing though, Jack's final attempt at glory resonating fatally for several others and resulting in a surprising, tender goodbye kiss between Rogers and Richard Arlen's David; the only way to deal with the fallout the phrase "That's war".