The Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences said today that it will screen its first Best Picture Oscar winner, the 1927 silent film Wings, on January 18 next year as part of a celebration of Paramount Pictures’ 100th anniversary. Tickets are available beginning today. The movie, which starred Clara Bow, Charles “Buddy” Rogers, Richard Arlen and Gary Cooper, first premiered in 1927. It also was the only silent film to win the Best Picture Oscar, something worth noting especially this year with the awards buzz surrounding Michel Hazanavicius’ black-and-white silent The Artist, which the Weinstein Co is distributing and mounting a series Oscar campaign for after sweeping it up at Cannes; it already won the Best Pic award from the New York Film Critics Circle earlier this week. The Wings screening next month will be a premiere of a restoration by Paramount with the help of the Academy Film Archive, complete with live-music accompaniment on the organ by Clark Wilson.
It’s part of the Academy’s Paramount celebration that includes the exhibition “Paramount’s Movie Milestones: A Centennial Celebration,” which features photographs, posters, design sketches and personal correspondence in conjunction with the studio’s birthday. The exhibit will run January 6-February 5 in the Academy’s Grand Lobby Gallery.
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In the 1928 Academy Awards, SUNRISE, directed by F.W. Murnau and produced and distributed by Fox Films won “Unique and Artistic Production” while WINGS won “Outstanding Picture, Production.” At the time, the awards were considered co-equal, and SUNRISE’s Oscar is often referred to in film histories as a “Best Picture” win. The two categories were discontinued the following year and replaced by a single “Best Picture.”
I’m sure the effect of the celebration for WINGS will be to remind everyone how long it’s been since Paramount won a major Academy Award, especially for something it produced itself.
YES. I was hoping someone would remind everyone about this. “SUNRISE” is the FAR SUPERIOR film, continuing to influence filmmakers today, with an outstanding and unforgettable performance by Lillian Gish. “WINGS” just plain stinks. It’s NOT a good movie and only won because Louis B. Mayer exerted influence to ensure Munrau’s superior film did not win.
That unforgettable performance was Janet Gaynor not Gish. But you’re 100% on the artistry of SUNRISE.
In fact WINGS with a crowd gets all kinds of snorts and laughter with the mutual infatuation of the two leads with Gary Cooper and each other, but it has some decent moments of accomplishment. But SUNRISE is a masterpiece and has stood the test of time and I too wish it were given the top shelf it deserves.
Actually, at the first Oscar ceremony, the statue widely considered the most prestigious of all those awarded was neither of the “Best Picture” ones but rather the “special” Oscar that Charlie Chaplin got for being the writer-director-producer-lead actor of THE CIRCUS.
Sumner played at his first theatre, probably sued Paramount for price fixing, this is Great!
Arlen and Rogers reunited for an episode – of all things – “Petticoat Junction” 40 years after doing the movie. And that episode airs next week on ME-TV.
Interesting bit of trivia: actress Mary Astor (“Maltese Falcon”) lost her fiance while he was filming “Wings”. He was flying one of two planes when their wings locked and they crashed to the ground.
Why are they screening an 85-year-old film to celebrate the 100th anniversary of a movie studio? I think people would be much more interested in seeing what was released by Paramount in 1912.
WINGS broke ground with its realistic depiction of aerial combat in WWI. Director William Wellman was a veteran fighter pilot from that war and determined to get things as right as possible.
SUNRISE doesn’t hold up all that well, either. Murnau’s German pictures are superior.
Just my two cents.