a5c7b9f00b Two young men fall in love with the same same girl. After the US enters WWI, both join the Air Corps and become aces. They remain friends, but the relation to the girl threatens their friendship. Two young men from the same town but different social classes end up as fighter pilots in WW1. Jack Preston is a keen auto mechanic, building and modifying cars. David Armstrong comes from a wealthy family. They are both in love with the same woman, Sylvia. Her heart belongs to David but she doesn't let Jack know and plays along with his infatuation. Meanwhile, Jack's neighbour, Mary, is deeply in love with him but he just views her as a friend. WW1 interrupts the romantic entanglements as Jack and David enlist in the US Army Air Service (Air Service of the AEF at the time). They are initially bitter enemies, due to them both vying for Sylvia's affections. Over time, however, they become very good friends. They are both posted to the same fighter squadron in France, where being a fighter pilot means every day could easily be your last. Watching a silent 1927 movie and flying an airplane have something in common. They both take a little getting used to. This is a pretty good movie about the US Air Service in World War I.<br/><br/>(Kids, that means 1918. The airplanes are so old they're funny. They have two wings and they're not bent backwards. You'll laugh. But, on the plus side, they don't serve peanut snacks, so your Mom doesn't have to worry about allergies.) Rogers and Arlen have grown up together and are best friends, though they happen to be in love with the same girl, Clara Bow. Arlen thinks she loves him, but she really loves Rogers, but Bow and Rogers keep it a secret from Arlen because they don't want to hurt his feelings or something and meanwhile – the viewer pendiculates.<br/><br/>The movie gets off the ground when the two buddies get to jab their elbows in each others' ribs while going through flight training. There's something a little odd about that friendship, by the way. I see no reason to get into it too deeply but when one dies in the other's arms and they're confessing their mutual adoration I thought they were going to have one last great big French kiss. There IS a kiss but it's on the cheek, an expression of comradeship, and after all this is France. Of course, the director, William Wellman, might be willing to tackle such an unusual homoerotic theme but it would never be allowed on the screen. A highly stereotypical ethnic – Herman Schrimpf – yes, but not the love that dare not speak its name.<br/><br/>I don't want to give the ending away. That's not usually the case but here the resolution of the plot is both important and ironic. What isn't surprising is the climax of the love affair. The minute that I saw these two rivals for the girl's hand march off to war, I wondered which of them would be the survivor.<br/><br/>It is, as I say, a pretty good movie. The affair with Bow is handled tactfully and doesn't take up an inordinate amount of time. It's a long movie, though, and one scene could have been condensed or even eliminated without too much trouble. I refer to the longish scene in the café in Paris where Rogers gets loaded and carries on about the champagne bubbles he's hallucinating. It seems like an excuse for an exercise in contemporary photographic legerdemain – all those bubbles coming out of nowhere and floating towards the ceiling.<br/><br/>Willaim Wellman was quite a character, full of "thumos", as the Greeks would have called it. A spirited youngster from an aristocratic Boston background he wound up flying in combat in the Lafayette Squadron in France, winning the Croix de Guerre, so he knows whereof he directs. And the air combat scenes are very good indeed. And some aerial shots give us panoramic displays of the battlefield itself, full of zig-zagging trenches, craters, and lines of barbed wire. I don't know how much money the movie cost but it must have been more than my own salary. Or yours. The acting is unexceptional, hemmed in as it is by the strictures of silent film making. At one point, I'm reasonably certain, an angry Rogers looks into the camera and clearly says, "Bastards!" Wellman would easily have been capable of that.<br/><br/>He was always more of a craftsman than an artist but he tackled some startling subjects, as in "Wild Boys Of The Road," and sometimes produced some truly sensitive and underplayed work, as in, "The Story of G. I. Joe." Nice job here. The Academy Awards have been a celebrated annual ceremony since 1929, and I have always been fascinated to watch as many of the winning movies as possible, I was especially excited to watch this, the first film in history to win the Oscar for Best Picture, directed by William A. Wellman (The Public Enemy, A Star I Born, The Ox-Bow Incident). Basically set in the year 1917, in a small American town, Jack Powell (Charles 'Buddy' Rogers), an auto mechanic, and David Armstrong (Richard Arlen), who comes from a wealthy family, are rivals, both are in love with the same woman, Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston). Sylvia's heart belongs to David, but she plays along with Jack's infatuations, Jack fails to realise that "girl next door" Mary Preston (Clara Bow) is desperately in love with him. It is First World War, the two young men both enlist to become combat pilots in the Air Service and are billeted together, they make a brief acquaintance with tent mate Cadet White (Gary Cooper), before he is killed the same day in an air crash. Undaunted, Jack and David endure a rigorous training period, they turn from enemies into best friends, and following graduation they are shipped off to France to fight the Germans. Mary joins the war effort, becoming an ambulance driver, she learns Jack has gained the reputation as an ace called "The Shooting Star", she encounters him while on leave in Paris, but he is too drunk to recognise her. Mary puts Jack to bed, two military police barge in as she is innocently changing, she is forced to resign and return to the United States. During the epic Battle of Saint-Mihiel, David is shot down and presumed dead, however he survives the crash landing, he steals a German biplane, and heads for the Allied lines. Jack spots David aircraft, in a tragic stroke of bad luck, he thinks it is an enemy aircraft, he wants for David's "death" and attacks, he successfully downs the craft. Jack only realises what he has done when wants to retrieve a souvenir of his "victory", Jack holds David in his arm, kissing him, David consoles his friend before dying, forgiving his comrade. The war ends, Jack returns home to a hero's welcome, he visits David's grieving parents to return his friend's effects, he begs forgiveness for causing David's death, David's Mother (Julia Swayne Gordon) blames the war for taking her son's life, not Jack, he is then reunited with Mary and realises he loves her. Also starring El Brendel as Herman Schwimpf, Richard Tucker as Air Commander, Gunboat Smith as The Sergeant, Henry B. Walthall as David's Father, Roscoe Karns as Lt. Cameron and Arlette Marchal as Celeste. The film certainly delivers the message of how war can devastate lives, the most memorable sequences are of course the mid- air battles, the rest of the film is mostly slow, and the love triangle storyline is sentimental and clichéd, but overall it is a fairly good silent war drama. It won the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Effects, Engineering Effects. Worth watching!
granginduabun Admin replied
365 weeks ago