It's hard to consider artifacts from an earlier time. Not only is there a need to establish context, there is an equal need to evaluate what's discovered on its own merits as well as in regard to the present.

Tagged as, "The Drama of the Skies," Wings was, for many years, a signature piece of movie special effects and a high point in the production of war films. It was also the first and only silent movie to win the Academy Award. This quality of being a silent film is important for giving Wings an appropriate context and offering fair critical remarks.

This is because it seems that with the proliferation of synch sound movies in the late 1920s, virtually every silent film was made a relic to times gone by. Likewise there was a turning away from the non-naturalistic form of silent film acting and screen direction involving histrionics and stylized performances. A new standard also developed to evaluate screen excellence and the resulting divide between those actors and filmmakers capable of transitioning into sound films and those who could not was quickly accepted.

Looking at Wings for the first time on videotape with an original score recorded from the console of a Wurlitzer Pipe Organ I was forced to reflect on these differing standards between then and now. I felt disappointment in the film's attempts at physical comedy, largely through the supporting character Schwimpf (El Brendel). I was also reminded of the need for audience literacy and the accompanying attention subtitles require. Plus I enjoyed watching the '20s "It" girl Clara Bow just like it was fun to see Gary Cooper in a cameo role as ill-fated Cadet White long before he became a superstar.

As an interpretive treat I observed how Wings is sprinkled throughout with odd moments that break the seamless storytelling technique and expose certain of its cultural assumptions. For example, ethnic English speakers are portrayed on-screen with costume choices and casting decisions and they are reinforced with title dialogue using slang and punctuation to suggest non-standard English. The titles themselves also become tools for manipulating mood in that the dialogue and explanatory material is written over illustrations that comment on screen action.

With our now complete recognition of Wings as one of the most famous silent films ever produced, we must now also acknowledge it as not being one of the best. Though its plot concerns two American flyboys enlisting to fight in World War I, the story is actually centered on two competing love stories. The first involves Jack (Charles Rogers), the film's lead, and his neighbor Mary (Bow) who secretly loves him. Unfortunately for her, Jack loves an urbane young woman named Sylvia (Jobyna Ralston) although she in turn loves David (Richard Arlen), Jack's deepest rival. When Jack and David go off to flight school they form a quick friendship in the air wars over France and their romantic dual subsides. During the climactic battle featuring a fit of mistaken identity, David gets killed and Jack returns home a hero to finally accept Mary's devotion after working Sylvia out of his system.

Nominated for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences very first awards banquet against The Last Command, The Racket, Seventh Heaven and The Way of All Flesh, Wings was singled out for its achievement among four now obscure titles. Were it not for being the first Oscar winner, even before the term "Oscar" was coined, Wings might very well have been forgotten.

This is not to say the film is without merit. It originated scenes, images and characters that have been absorbed into the vocabulary of war movies and filtered into such contemporary pictures as Pearl Harbor. Now easy to dismiss as laughable with our advancing digital reproduction techniques and more sophisticated use of miniatures the film's flying sequences were considered state of the art and the thrilling hallmark of stunt photography.

In being disappointed by the film despite these strengths I am also acknowledging that it suffers from the same tendency most films today fail to resolve. Running over two-hours with a simple story, three lead actors and only a few plot problems to work out, Wings is far too long for its material and its audience's level of interest.

Called in its moment the most "Outstanding Picture" after receiving the Academy's top honor, it's title was annually passed on to subsequent films called, variously, the most "Outstanding Production" from 1929-1940, the most "Outstanding Motion Picture" from 1941-1943, the "Best Motion Picture" from 1944-1961 and the "Best Picture" ever since. Because MGM sponsored organized the Academy and because Paramount Pictures produced Wings it now seems like a pique of generosity that it won top honors. Of course Louis B. Mayer's studio recouped Paramount's win in the next few years with wins of its own for The Broadway Melody in 1929, Grand Hotel in 1932, Mutiny on the Bounty in 1935, The Great Ziegfeld in 1936 and Gone with the Wind in 1939 yet it's significant that a rival studio was first given movie of the year honors ahead of the parent organization.

Another note of consideration concerns the Academy's nationalistic impulses that were intended to protect American movie interests. With the passage of time, the expansion of film production across the world and the faltering position of Hollywood's founding studios, such patriotism was eroded through begrudging acceptance of foreign films and foreign film personalities. In the first year of the Academy Awards ceremony, though, such liberalism was decidedly unpopular. One casualty of this shortsightedness was the Fritz Lang's masterwork, Metropolis.

Even after accepting Wings as the Academy's choice to represent itself at the cusp of the sound revolution we must also realize Metropolis as a vastly superior movie. In every way it's a greater cultural capstone and continues to encourage fans to this day based on its own merits rather than on its primary association with the Oscar.

After all this is it still worth taking a look at Wings?

For the purist, yes, but for everyone else, it's a regression to earlier times that may not reward your two-hour search for quality entertainment.