The Better Half

1. Wings (1927)

• Bradley J. Halverson & Carly Corio

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The One with All the Bubbles (and bubble butts!). In this episode, Bradley and Carly break down the very first Best Picture Winner- the 1927 silent war drama Wings. In the first half, the hosts recap the film, including all of Mary's antics, the famous bubble scene, and THAT kiss! In the 2nd half, the hosts discuss the first academy awards and the surprising connection to Taylor Swift. Plus find out how they rate and rank Wings, and which movie they will be discussing next! 

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Speaker 03:

And the Oscar for Best Picture is presented to... And the Oscar goes to... And the Oscar goes to... And the Oscar goes to... And the Oscar goes to... And the Oscar goes to... And the Oscar goes... And the Oscar goes... And the Oscar goes... And the Oscar goes to...

Bradley:

Welcome to The Better Half. I'm Bradley J. Halverson, and here with me, she's my better half. It's Carly Corio. Hi, Carly.

Carly:

Hi, Bradley. How

Bradley:

are you? How's life?

Carly:

I'm very good. I'm very good. I've had a good week. I've had a good life. How about you?

Bradley:

It's good. It's episode one, Carly. We did it.

Carly:

Totally. Every time I told someone, I was like, I'm starting a podcast with Brad. And they're like, haven't you been saying that forever? Right. Just like in general about me starting a podcast. Right. But I finally have a friend that really wants to do it. And I do. I want to shout out Eva because I did do two episodes of a podcast with someone else. But this one's more targeted toward a theme.

Bradley:

Yeah. Well, we're here talking about the very first Best Picture winner. Okay. The 1927 Classic wings

Carly:

classic

Bradley:

classic no exclamation point at the end of wings although i feel like it needs one

Carly:

and maybe like a to dot the i with like a bubble instead of like a circle you know

Bradley:

instead of a dot exactly so yeah we're here talking about wings notably famously a silent movie

Carly:

the only fully silent one to ever win

Bradley:

true yes and so it's at this point it's you know 98 years old so it's in the public domain we were able to find it right on youtube so if anyone wants to go watch it go to youtube watch the whole thing and it was like good quality too it wasn't like

Carly:

it was good it had been remastered you could tell

Bradley:

yeah we found the 2025 edit of wings so but we are gonna be you know guiding you through most of the movie of wings so spoiler alert for this you know 98 year old film so if you haven't watched wings you know stop what you're doing you know pause this podcast we'll still be here go watch wings um and come back you know the

Carly:

time is up on spoiler alerts for this movie it has passed

Bradley:

okay so let's get into it because we basically start off um you know once we get through the very you know slow crawl of the opening credits uh we pretty much get introduced through our main characters you know we got jack here he's very excited to you know go fight in the war and become a pilot in particular in the war and then you got mary the girl next door who is obsessed with jack obsessed and there's like there's also you know david and sylvia but really like there's like this like love quadrangle that's happening where like Mary's really into Jack but Jack is really into Sylvia but Sylvia's into David and you can argue that David is then into Jack as well at least by the end of the movie but

Carly:

you

Bradley:

know in the beginning here he's like all for Sylvia as well whatever

Carly:

yes and I should preface this a little bit because you had mentioned that he's into David and Jack might be into each other when we originally googled the movie Wings I went to look up how long it is i went to look up wings runtime and the first thing that came up as google was wings 1927 gay so we were like wait what so we looked into it and it yeah so it does have some tones and it was ahead of its time

Bradley:

no and I mean that immediately set the tone for me suddenly I was like oh I'm like wings like it's like a silent movie I think both you and I were a little like oh god how are we gonna get through this like two hour silent movie but as soon as you said like the word gay I was like

Carly:

Brad was in I

Bradley:

was in I was like excited but yeah you know when we first see Jack he is like he's like building a car I think like in his driveway he's building some sort of like vehicle like a four wheeler I don't really know

Carly:

yeah I think at that point in time it was a car yes

Bradley:

okay He's building an off-roader, four-wheeler, Mustang, Civic, Honda. I don't know. I don't know cars. And we got Mary like peeping over the fence. She's like the girl next door. And Mary just is like... Jack's out.

Carly:

Jack's out there.

Bradley:

She literally hops over the fence. Literally like leaps over the fence.

Carly:

Actually scales the fence.

Bradley:

Helps Jack build this whole car. They name it the shooting star. She's so excited to be involved in the project. And immediately upon finishing the car, he hops into it and drives off to go see Sylvia and just leaves Mary literally in his driveway.

Carly:

Yeah. Leaves her behind after helping him finish his car. And I should, we should say that she draws a shooting star on it or they draw it. together they like paint it on there

Bradley:

yeah very important the shooting star you know they named it together mary's like all a giddy um and he leaves her there in the driveway and she honestly i think just stays in that driveway for a while like i don't think she she goes

Carly:

sad very sad

Bradley:

and then we we cut over and we get introduced to like david and sylvia and sylvia is like she's like sad puritan woman on a swing set and i believe david's there at this point but they're chatting i think david at this point knows he's also like gonna head off to train and in the army to become a pilot. We should also say like this is like the year is like 1917. We're like in the height of World War One. And so that is specifically kind of what Jack and David are off to. But you know, Jack, you know, rolls around his car. He's like showing off to Sylvia. Sylvia is like, you know, whatever she was doing. Honestly, Sylvia, not really a leading character. She honestly stays on that swing set for most of the movie. She

Carly:

somehow managed to get top billing at the beginning of the movie shows us the three main characters and then Sylvia Sylvia's the actors names and we cannot stress enough how little Sylvia's in this film and the two maybe three minute scenes she's in she's sitting on a swing looking sad so

Bradley:

yeah like yearning full of desire of a sad saddest girl in the whole world so yeah and the two hour run time she's probably in like 15 minutes

Carly:

if that that's very generous but yes very little of it

Bradley:

and she's into David and David you know we get to see his like home life he's clearly very loaded living in a mansion but also living with his like parents

Carly:

and

Bradley:

dog and dog yes I my eyes just naturally glaze over the dog and I only remember what it looked like and I don't remember much from this scene but I do remember he's like gonna head off to war and he like kisses his mom full on the mouth so that was like off-putting to say the least like full

Carly:

passionate and it wasn't even just a peck on the mouth it was lips intertwining kiss it was way too romantic and we both audibly gasped

Bradley:

yeah I'm like where's the gay stuff this is not what I signed up for he's

Carly:

not who we were looking for and

Bradley:

i think his mom gives him his like good luck charm it's like this little tiny like bear like bear it couldn't be

Carly:

smaller it wasn't even a teddy bear it was about the size of a keychain you're very right it actually fits in a shirt pocket that's how small this thing is and she said this is your good luck go

Bradley:

to war him a fully grown man in his 20s probably is is thrilled to have this bear and he's like all right all right ma see you later

Carly:

smooch

Bradley:

but we should um before we head off to war we should to touch back on Jack and Mary because Jack is gonna head off whatever Mary's very upset and as a parting gift uh to Jack Mary gives him a selfie of herself you know

Carly:

the original selfie

Bradley:

you know a seven by five you know printed photograph of herself it's the most cracked selfie I think I've ever seen

Carly:

yeah um picture someone sitting down and leaning over like their their chest is to their knees almost yeah and looking to the side and then this big stupid open mouth grin but also her eyes are confused that is yeah that is the picture and it's a shot from the side and you just see if we had an instagram we would post it but

Bradley:

yeah and honestly we we may you know we may

Carly:

someday

Bradley:

we may find it and share to our stories uh we'll have Eddy our intern you know

Carly:

yeah Eddy get that on our instagram Eddy

Bradley:

and his response to receiving this photograph is the most pained smile I've ever seen anyone can. It's like dopiest, just full of pain and cringe. He cannot be less excited to receive this gift from Mary.

Carly:

This isn't my favorite picture, but it is my least favorite picture.

Bradley:

Meanwhile, he does go and see Sylvia before he goes, right? And Sylvia puts a photo of herself in like a little locket, right?

Carly:

For, it was originally for David. And she was writing a letter like to David, love you lots, and was putting a little, little teeny appropriately sized headshot, appropriate picture in a little locket.

Bradley:

Yeah, Sylvia's doing it right, you know. But the problem is Jack shows up and Sylvia, you know, she doesn't want to be honest about her feelings towards Jack that she's not, she's just not into him. She gives the locket to him.

Carly:

Because Jack sees it and is like, oh, what's this for me? And

Bradley:

opens it for me,

Carly:

assumes it's his and

Bradley:

takes it. Yeah. So that's kind of his good luck charm heading off to war. And David is not aware of this. He's not aware of the locket or the photograph or the letter that Jack has. But it's a bit of a bit of enemies to lover type situation between Jack and David. They head off to war and they're in pilot training. There's this whole segment where there's in boot camp whatever they're working out outside they're doing these like burpee lunge kicks whatever but every time like Jack puts his legs kicks these legs back he purposely like smushes David's hat

Carly:

it was a burpee flirt if I've ever seen it

Bradley:

oh

Carly:

oh my oh my feet oh oh oh it was very flirtatious

Bradley:

yeah and honestly I think it was like just the same two second clip of his like shoes squashing the hat just reused like over and over again

Carly:

a thousand percent

Bradley:

but this leads to like big you know physical fight between Jack and David and all the all the men are surrounding them you know they're like fight fight wrestle whatever it is I guess men do you know this is preparing them for war I guess but they they fight they both I don't think any either either of them win but they do get this like mutual respect for one another after sort of like physically sort of going at it in a homoerotic tone so

Carly:

totally

Bradley:

but this is where they start to become friends. Then they start jumping into planes. They start practicing. They share a tent with this guy named White, who's like, hey, you know, make sure you have your lucky charm. And then, you know, some commander shows up and he's like, all right, White, you got to head up there for your, you know, practice drills or whatever. And he goes and leaves his lucky charm behind and he immediately dies. Immediately gets into a plane, just flat out crashes into another plane, I believe. You hear a plane take

Carly:

off and then you hear a plane crash? Right after. And Jack and David are completely sullen by this person they just met dying.

Bradley:

Yeah. Yeah. Literally five minutes. And the commander comes back and he's like, all right, you got to pack up all the white

Carly:

stuff. You got to pack up his stuff. And they're distraught about it.

Bradley:

Wow. Brutal. We should also say there is a fifth lead character. His name was Schlempf. The problem is, the problem is, is I have no idea what he looks like. And like throughout the whole movie, there would be like this new white guy on the screen and Carly would be like, oh, Schlempf. And so in my head, it would be like, oh, I was like oh Carly got it I'm like that's Schlempf okay I'm gonna I'm gonna track it going forward and a couple scenes later like I would be like I see a new character and Carly be like oh there's

Carly:

Schlempf it had to have been what an hour and a half into the movie and Brad's like you are so good at picking out Schlempf and I'm like no Brad I literally just pick out any white guy because I can't identify him so we had a Schlempf a fake Schlempf meter where we found him but yeah yeah he just kind of goes away I think

Bradley:

yeah I truly cannot tell you again what he looks like or what what the fate of his character was by the end of the movie. I don't know if he lives, if he dies. Like, I don't know. They

Carly:

do not follow up on Schlimp. And we should say we missed a couple of key things. One is the entire movie's in sepia tone. So that did contribute to us not identifying anyone. And I think we missed a very, very important piece. You're so right. As soon as they get to boot camp, or should I say butt camp? Because we see them at this desk. And you know, when you get to boot camp, they like hose you down and then shave your heads and then they like send you in this room to get naked and they fit you for a uniform right

Bradley:

yeah that's it you get tailored yeah

Carly:

yeah that's exactly what boot camp is and then they open this door on screen and in the back you see maybe three male butts just standing there

Bradley:

yeah it's all it's almost like a blink and you miss it you know kind of reveal because like the focus is like very much on the like front of the camera and these the door just happens to be in the and there's just like a row of men's butts so I know I audibly made a noise upon seeing this I think we even backed up because I think you did miss it initially Carly yeah

Carly:

we did I missed the first the first male butt shot because there was a smaller male butt shot later and then I said wait wait wait and you're like no it was bigger so we did we rewinded it and yeah so we did watch the butt scene twice and in further investigation this was the first widely released film to have nudity in it which was male nudity which is amazing and even more deserving of it award

Bradley:

yeah because you and I Carly we had talked about you know prior to starting the project like what sort of things do we want to be tracking and all these best picture winners like what do we care about and like we definitely threw out there like nudity and like I'm fully expecting like we're gonna see a lot of female nudity a lot of boobs so yeah how how shocked am I to learn that the very first best picture winner and it's it's just male nudity there is no female nudity I

Carly:

do think we do see side we do see side boob a little bit I'm pretty sure we do have a nip slip at one point

Bradley:

yeah We'll get to Mary at the intermission, but.

Carly:

Yeah. Okay, yeah. I didn't want to back us up too far, but I think those are important points we wanted to get back to.

Bradley:

No, thank you so much. I did write men's butts with like three exclamation points in my notes when we watched this movie, so. Yeah, me

Carly:

too. I said men butts in naked room. Bradley, I put it in quotes, naked room by Bradley Halverson. So at some point you said, look at the naked room.

Bradley:

I also wrote David kisses mom, question mark, exclamation point. So, so if you haven't guessed, like Carly and I we're gonna be like these are some like high level thoughts here when it comes to wings but I appreciate it I mean wings took swings and you know I really appreciated it with the male nudity so

Carly:

one more thing with Schrempf and I do think this was Schrempf kind of to get us back on track is Schrempf I feel like his key moment in the movie was his tattoo right?

Bradley:

wait that was Schrempf?

Carly:

I mean I think it was Schrempf I'm like 90% sure that was Schrempf but either way it was one of the white men in the film and at two different points he shows off this yeah stars and stripes tattoo on his bicep so he holds up his arm shows his bicep and then he like shake weights his arm up and down so it like jiggles and

Bradley:

i don't know the flag is like waving in the way yes

Carly:

and it was an awkward shot and then they showed the same shot later in the movie as he's showing it off to some women but um so that's part of shrimp and i i had the tattoo as an important piece

Bradley:

yeah i i have a feeling most of this two-hour movie time is It really was just like maybe 90 minutes of original shots and then like 30 minutes of reused, recycled shots. So yeah, so David and Jack, you know, this is sort of the classic wartime montage. We see them in planes. They do get into like a big plane fight with the High Knees and the German people. The German guys are bad in World War I.

Carly:

High Knees and Forkers. Those were the terms.

Bradley:

Yeah. And meanwhile, you know, Mary, she's not content just sitting at home. You know, she sees an ad in the paper and decides to join as like a volunteer ambulance driver in the military so she heads off to war too yes queen we love it

Carly:

Rosie the Riveter at it in true fighting form

Bradley:

yeah and again Sylvia still just on the swing set we imagine we don't see her but we know that she's there does not head off to war but Mary does and yeah so David and Jack they're like ace pilots you know they they're so good they're they're shooting down all these German planes

Carly:

and they're best friends now

Bradley:

yes they're best friends you know um uh you know war will do that to you and you know jack's plane is called the shooting star everybody he's celebrated and you know there's uh before we head into intermission you know there's like a big scene where like you know the boys are up in the sky fighting the germans and mary's down on the ground in her truck and she's like heading to this like nearby town a bunch of military guys are showing up i already forgot the name of that town

Carly:

mervale

Bradley:

mervale that's right the mervalians they all show up and the germans you know drop several bombs And Mary just gets out of her ambulance and just gets underneath it for the bomb droppings.

Carly:

All of the military folks had gone underground or something. They had noticed it was coming and somehow Mary was left above ground by herself. And in very Michael Scott threat level midnight dodging bullets, she hides under a car and then she gets out from under the car and then she goes back under the car and dodges many actual bombs coming from an airplane. She's

Bradley:

really heroic. Four or six bombs drop on poor Mervale and the Mervalians. And again, and Mary here, she just emerges out of the rubble completely unscathed. No, no scratches, not bleeding at all. She just

Carly:

wipes, wipes some sweat from her head. And that is it.

Bradley:

Just in time for all the other military guys to head out there. And they're all looking up just in time for, you know, Jack and the shooting star to like shoot down the final plane. And everyone's like, whoa, Jack, the shooting star. And Mary hears this. She doesn't even realize that it's her man. on jack up there being the hero and she like loses it

Carly:

because the same exact shooting star had been painted on set on jack's airplane so mary's like oh my god

Bradley:

she's like i i know what that means then he loves me

Carly:

yes uh

Bradley:

and that kind of leads us into intermission i believe like all the all the army guys they're in france at this point yeah um with the allies uh against the german preparing for Or the big

Carly:

push, end quote. The big push, which is like the...

Bradley:

The big push.

Carly:

Yes, that's what they're preparing for.

Bradley:

But at this point, they're celebrating their victory. You know, we had an intermission. At this point, Carly and I look at each other and we're like, intermission? Like, that's like, how much more time? So I have like another 90 minutes to go. And we come back from intermission and it's like nighttime in Paris. And Jack and all his army buddies, they go hit up. I mean, it has to be like a brothel. Like, it has to be like a strip club. Like a French strip club. But just think... 1920s version of that. I guess really it's the 1917 version of it. Mary shows up. Mary's like on the hunt for Jack. She's like, where is he? She's talking to several people. She's getting, you know, clues. You know, she's cracking the case here of like, where's Jack? Finds him at the strip club. He is completely drunk and with like, I don't think this woman's like on his lap, but somebody like a woman who like works there, she's keeping him company. And I did read in my little research that Carly, if you thought Jack was acting in this entire scene, he was not. The actor was actually drunk during the entire scene apparently I'd like never had alcohol before and so was drinking during the scene and was actually drunk

Carly:

wow how Hollywood

Bradley:

I know because it really looks it really looks like overacting like it really looks like

Carly:

bad drunk like like bad acting and to think that it is in fact not acting is glad they changed that in Hollywood

Bradley:

yeah so the you know you would think that there would be some female nudity here there there really isn't a ton this might be where the side boob is I can't remember but Mary mary sees jack here sees him with this you know floozy you know um and she's upset she like doesn't she like get in disguise here no she like dresses up

Carly:

um no she actually like gets upset and leaves a little bit and goes and talks to some you know

Bradley:

she like cries in the bathroom right yes

Carly:

and then

Bradley:

some woman is like classic female i'll

Carly:

help you as a classic female bathroom trip would do girlfriend i will help you and then mary um they somehow have a whole new wardrobe and makeup and hair extensions a available in this bathroom yeah and mary has a very sandy from greece moment and comes out just looking banging a new outfit new hair is like ready to take on the town aka jack

Bradley:

jack yeah and she tries her best she's clearly like competing with the this other woman the floozy um and jack is like so drunk that he can't even look at mary in the eyes like he he has no idea that this is mary sort of like buzzing around him you know he when he does finally look at her like the camera shows you his like pov and it's all blurry because he's not so drunk and he's also completely distracted by like i guess they opened some like champagne bottles and and like bubbles these like cgi bubbles like come out of the bottle and jack loses his mind like he loves these bubbles he cannot believe it he thinks it's the funniest most amazing thing he's ever seen in the world these bubbles there's

Carly:

actually a speech you know slide because sometimes they would show just slides with speech on them and it said hooray for bubbles that was was a quote for from drunk jack um and really explains the next 20 minutes of the whole movie

Bradley:

yeah this was a long segment of at this like paris french club whatever in the bubbles and eventually like mary finds a way to get rid of the floozy they're all kind of like walking back i guess to jack's hotel room or wherever it is where he's sleeping but at this point it's just mary and jack and jack again has no understanding that this is mary with him doesn't recognize her doesn't see her which is really a theme of the whole movie right like he's not really seeing her ever

Carly:

Wow, what a good interpretation.

Bradley:

Thank you. Thank you. I just came up with that on my own. He unfortunately did see that cracked selfie she tried to give him in the beginning. So he did see her there, unfortunately for her. But so it's very weird. Like they get back to the room and it's sort of like, I don't really know what Mary is like hoping that happens here. Like if he's going to just be like, hey, you know, I'm in love with you. But he really just passes out on the bed.

Carly:

He does see bubbles come out of the bed for a little bit. He looks around the room, sees bubbles come out of the bedpost.

Bradley:

Yep.

Carly:

And then, yeah, just kind of passes out in his bed.

Bradley:

And Mary's like, oh, and I guess also too, like it's being revealed to us, the viewer, that like the boys have to like go back to work or like the big push is like here already. Like it's the next morning. And Mary knows this information, but Jack doesn't because he's drunk and now he's asleep. But she kind of puts the notice, I think, on his like nightstand. And then she, there's a very bizarre segment where she like, you know, he's passed out. She's still in the room. She puts up like a curtain and she proceeds to like dress back into her normal clothes.

Carly:

And this is where the nip slip, I have in my notes, this is where the nip slip happens. Just for our viewers, if they want to go back and see both nudities.

Bradley:

Yeah, so Mary's in the middle of changing and just happens, these two military guys show up to let Jack know, I guess, that the big push is coming. But instead, they open the door and find Mary dressing and they immediately are like, you're fired, Mary. Go back to the United States.

Carly:

Undressing in a room behind a very... covered area while this military man is passed out on his bed because he drank too much. It was like they were appalled that she was there and doing anything at all.

Bradley:

Not only do they fire her from being a volunteer ambulance driver in the military, but they put it in the newspaper. Jack sees this later in the film in the newspaper that Mary was sent back to the United States.

Carly:

It literally says Mary Preston sent back to the United States will no longer be serving duties in the military. And it was in this little snippet like it can't have cost very much for the military but they did take out the ad in the newspaper for it yeah

Bradley:

yeah this is a

Carly:

french newspaper by the way

Bradley:

yeah so mary is kind of you know gonna be pretty much absent for most of the rest of the movie until the very end but uh we pretty much proceed straight into like the big push where now you know jack and david gotta um suit up you know get back in their planes um and fight some more germans and before prior to that happening we do get some like some good interpersonal you know drama where you know David sort of discovers Jack's you know little lucky charm he gets the locket he sees that he had Sylvia's photo but there's the letter with it that basically says like Sylvia always loved David she never loved Jack and so that really is like wow David's like I have something to fight for I guess still and him and Jack really don't like get into it they don't beef too hard about this David I think kind of keeps this knowledge to himself I don't think he really reveals to Jack in that moment that

Carly:

oh

Bradley:

hey like It's not for you. It's for me. But this is important because I do think it distracts David enough as they head off into their planes that David forgets his very important lucky charm, his little teddy bear. The bear thing. The bear keychain thing that his mother lover gave him. So yeah, so this is important because they head up into their planes. A lot of action sequences at this point. Planes are getting shot down. Carly and I are doing our best to track like, okay, which ones are the bad planes and which ones are the good planes.

Carly:

And we should say for a 1920 really six film yeah or 26 27 these effects are very good and I'm sure at the time people watch this movie like wow like I don't know how they did a lot of the shots I have no clue back in the 1920s but they were very good

Bradley:

yeah I will you know the one thing I want to say about the director Willie Mae Wellman is that he was like specifically picked to direct this project because he was the only one in Hollywood who actually had combat experience in World War I and was actually a pilot in and I think it really shows because like even though I know nothing about the army I know nothing about army tactics or maneuvers or what's historically accurate but watching these sequences in the planes like it felt very authentic to me and it felt very like it was impressive for a 1927 film I was like this it did not look the bubbles looked worse than the plane is I think that and I think you know we're thankful for it because they somehow got

Carly:

like shots of missiles falling out of airplanes and like shooting which like today I get it with drones and stuff but like how did willie do it amazing

Bradley:

how did yeah william a well how did how did he do it but so things are getting really intense it's you know we're clearly reaching the climatic moment of the movie and david's plane does go down um in enemy territory and he is presumed dead but we the viewers learned very quickly that no he did survive the plane crash he just is now kind of navigating on foot in enemy territory but jack gets the news that david is dead He's very sad, but he's like, you know, the mission still goes on, whatever. He gets back in the plane to go shoot down some more Germans. And David, you know, kudos to him. He really, you know, fights his way through a horde of German soldiers. Called Doughboys. Yes, yep. Finds this kind of like nearby, I don't know if village is the right, or like a base, base camp or something, but sees a row of German planes there. So he gets into one and flies off. And I remember saying to you, Carly, I was like, uh-oh.

Carly:

Yeah. You did. You called us and said, oh my gosh, Jack is going to think.

Bradley:

And we know that David doesn't have the teddy bear, right? So you can, I'm sure you, the listener, you can see where this is going. But Jack, he's so good at his job.

Carly:

Right. And just a good thing I want to say is at the military base, the German military base, I think there's like a little scuffle and they're like kind of, you know, like fighting a little bit and talking. And at one point Bradley said, I can't believe this is what men used to do. And now we're drag queens.

Bradley:

Yeah. I was thinking too like the sepia tone that the whole movie is in was very much like season one of a little bit like the old old

Carly:

shows old meaning like

Bradley:

yes

Carly:

early 2000s that I don't want to watch because they're not in HD yeah

Bradley:

yeah exactly yeah it was a little tough

Carly:

but yes then so then we're at this military base and David sees the plane and says I'm going to get it

Bradley:

gets in takes off um you know I'm sure the the audiences in 1927 they were all like in the theater hooping and hollering they're like David Yay. But then here comes Jack. Little did they know. Jack sees a lone German plane out there and is like, not today. And shoots David out of the sky. Not knowing that it's his buddy, his pal, his lover, really.

Carly:

And David had... Obviously, David knew and sees Jack in the plane. And it's trying to like wave like, no, Jack, it's me. Hey,

Bradley:

don't. You're a lover. Don't

Carly:

do that. Hey,

Bradley:

bad vibes, dude. Right,

Carly:

right, right, right. But the shooting star prevailed and did shoot down David's plane.

Bradley:

Yes. And he kind of crash lands into like a random person's house. It's this like older woman carrying a 36 month old child.

Carly:

A very cute little kid that Bradley somehow believes looks like the little girl from the ring and I don't understand

Bradley:

no I said she is Renesmee Cullen but the CGI version

Carly:

yeah

Bradley:

in whichever Breaking Dawn it is this also

Carly:

will I'm sure be a theme in our 96 episodes but Brad has Brad does not like any child actor any child really even in real life not a big fan of children yeah but child actors will never impress Brad and he'll never like them so

Bradley:

yeah yeah she was scary we can we can we can track the child actors we'll see if any of them actually you know turn out some performances that I can get on board for but Silent Creepy Annabelle Girl I wasn't vibing

Carly:

with and she also had no part in the movie she literally was just there to like be cute and like stand there and show like oh there's still innocence in the world and Bradley thinks that she ruined the whole film

Bradley:

I'm telling you the shot was scary the mother standing there she's holding the child the child's like facing the mother and it was very like exorcist style her neck just does a 360 and turns and looks back at you like directly at the camera it was it was spooky so this is the house that David just kind of crashed Lance into with the plane and Jack sort of he touches down everybody's initially celebrating but then Jack sees that it's David and suddenly this heroic moment turns to tragedy as you know they get David out of the German plane he's you know despite the fact that I feel like there was no blood or anything David's clearly not doing well laying there feeble and Jack is there by his side holding holding his head supporting him there's a lot of petting of the hair a

Carly:

long embrace hair caressing and then it happens

Bradley:

david's like yeah david's like no worries it's all cool like i get it i had a great time i forgot my bear that's really why this happened and and then yeah jack goes in for the kiss

Carly:

goes in very very like romeo and juliet david is laying down and jack takes him embraces him and leans in for what i wrote down as a corner mouth kiss

Bradley:

yeah it was very much on the corner it was like cloud like sort of like two straight actors having to do a gay kiss like initially like maybe in the 90s a little bit but it definitely is there's definitely lip-to-lip contact there and it like lasts like a beat oh yeah they they took their time not as

Carly:

passionate as David and his mom but definitely more passionate than some other kisses we've seen in films for sure between between people and relationships

Bradley:

it is debated too like is this really the first instance of like a gay kiss in cinema and there's there is some debate about it but for me you know this was obviously the most exciting part of the whole movie.

Carly:

What about the

Bradley:

butts?

Carly:

Even more?

Bradley:

Better than the butts. I mean, this was like passion. You know, you could just feel off these two men. They really loved each other. And it was more just about like being bonded in war and tragedy and trauma. It was rooted in something real, something gay.

Speaker 02:

Yeah.

Bradley:

So unfortunately, you know, it's the kiss of death because David's like, you know, dead.

Carly:

While Jack and this woman and her demon child apparently watch.

Bradley:

The Annabelle child. Yeah. yep

Carly:

oh my

Bradley:

god we we cut to the ending jack returns as like a war hero i mean there's parades it's like it's like when the calves won you know that big game in 2016 like there's parades on the streets and but jack you can see it on his face jack does not look super you know happy or celebratory um you can tell he's in his feelings but he heads off to david's rich family's home the mansion i don't even think we see sylvia at this

Speaker 02:

moment

Bradley:

but she's you you know where you know where sylvia is on the

Speaker 02:

swing

Bradley:

so jack goes to visit david's parents you know his mother lover and she's all like oh it's okay we forgive you you know war war is tough yeah you know

Carly:

it happens

Bradley:

we get it it happens and um you get the sense that like david he's or not david jack is a changed man war has changed it actually

Carly:

said on screen when he comes back it said a man returning where a boy had gone away so that's very exactly very much explained his vibes when he comes back

Bradley:

and this is evident when he returns home and of course mary's still there in his driveway and he finally sees her i'm

Carly:

sorry really quick before we get to mary yeah did jack not bring back david's bear

Bradley:

you know i i did have that thought i was like did he return the bear to his like mother i

Carly:

do i because i feel like when when david leaves before they go and do the big push i think he leaves the bear but then jack's like i'm gonna take this yeah and then or something like that and then i do think he gives the bear keychain back to the mom. But you'll have to watch to find out because I don't know for sure.

Bradley:

Yeah. A little peek behind the curtain. Carly and I watched this movie several weeks ago prior to filming this. Yeah, we did not just watch. And our notes, now we know we should probably take more copious notes. Yeah. moving forward i will say you and i had a blast watching this

Carly:

oh we did

Bradley:

uh let me let me just wrap it up because yeah jack jack heads home a changed man you know no longer a boy but a man now and he finally sees mary and he sees you know finally what he hasn't seen before and i really do think it's a it's a reflection of like the fact that like he is very much a different guy from the beginning to the end of the film uh that war changed him you know and i'm sure that's going to be a common theme in all these war movies um that we're loves a war movie and the Academy loves a musical so but yeah so you can you can kind of get the sense that Mary gets her happy ending here and and then the film ends right

Carly:

off in

Bradley:

the shooting star the shooting star so yeah I would say I I enjoyed it like the movie the movie achieved what I needed all movies to achieve to be entertaining and I was really like you know you and I you we agree that we're not going to go in chronological order with these best picture winners we're going to jump around but we felt like it was the right move to start with the very first one and i think we both were sort of like a silent movie a war movie whatever but there was actually like quite a few things to chew on and a few things that like were interesting and i think i think it's clear to me why it won best picture although at the first academy awards the category was outstanding picture which actually sounds nicer in my opinion but so i think it's a it's a clear reason why it went just for the technical feat of it all it did have i think the soundtrack was added in later so like Like, you know, there's certainly no dialogue in the movie, but there is all this like swelling, sweeping musical score throughout the whole movie during all those like tense, you know, plain action sequences. And so, yeah, I feel like I enjoyed it quite more than I thought I was going to. What about you, Carly? Yeah,

Carly:

I very much enjoyed it. I was impressed with how much was going on with such few like key characters. And I will say throughout you, there was a good amount of reading throughout only because they would maybe, you know, once a minute at least show like a little screen with words on it that you would sometimes had dialogue sometimes had little like explanatory words but yeah so there was a little bit of that but for being a silent movie I still was intrigued by a few different pieces of the storyline and at the end too it it had depth and it surprised me at the end

Bradley:

yeah so there's a few few different things I want to touch on really about the the first Academy Awards did a little you know mini deep dive the first Academy Awards happened in 1929 but it was covering films that were released in 1927 and 1928 so we do see this in like the first six years or so of the academy awards it's like covering like a two-year period and that eventually gets rectified and we just at the time that we're recording this is 2025 we just had the 97th um academy awards so we're getting close to the big 100 which is i think it's exciting timing for this project and for this podcast kind of like a lead-in to whatever that 100th best picture winner is going to be i'm so curious but it's interesting because like the 100th ceremony is going to take place in 2028 and that's because um There were two Academy. There's two Oscars in 1930. It's the only year that had the ceremony twice. And so we are off by a year. But the first one does happen in 1929. But Wings came out in 1927. So and it wins, you know, Outstanding Picture against only two other movies. There's only three movies nominated in this whole category. There was a movie called The Racket, which was a crime drama and a movie called Seventh Heaven, which was a romance drama starring Janet Gaynor, which always appears in crossword plays. puzzle clues, Janet Gaynor. And Seventh Heaven actually was like the big winner of the night. It was nominated for five different categories and won three different categories, but just didn't secure Best Picture. And the director of Wings, William A. Wellman, I gotta say the full name, he wasn't even nominated for Best Picture, which I think that's unusual. I think most people who directed a movie that's nominated for Best Picture are also maybe in that Best Director category. I could be wrong about that. I'll be curious to track that.

Carly:

And we should say all three nominees were a silent films

Bradley:

yeah

Carly:

i think seventh heaven had a little like more music originally to it had like more of a score when it was originally released but they were all silent

Bradley:

but we will not be watching or discussing those because they're big losers and we only deal with the

Carly:

other half of the the movie spectrum yeah the bad half

Bradley:

the lesser half

Carly:

not the better half

Bradley:

not the better half

Carly:

exactly

Bradley:

um wings also wins in another category the best engineering effects and i think well deserved but yeah i mean carly what what did you what came up in your you know mini deep dive research

Carly:

yeah i took deep dives into the actors mostly um they there were four main actors billed at the beginning of the film um obviously our jack our david our mary and then our swing and sylvia um all those are all their character names as soon as we heard about wings i of course went to the wikipedia page and the first thing i saw was the leading lady and her name in the movie mary preston but in real life is clara bow and all of my swifties out there are going to know that that is on her most recent tortured poets department um album it's a song title it's called clara bow and it's basically about just how different wings it's about wings um no it's about how like new people in the entertainment industry are always compared to older people so It's like, you look like Clara Bow and then it continues to progress in the song to newer artists. So Clara Bow is the title of the song. So I was like, ooh, Clara Bow. And the more I dove into Clara Bow and it said that she, this film actually originally did not have Clara Bow, I'm sorry, Mary Preston as much at the center of it. It was just a war movie and Clara Bow said, I will be in it if you rewrite it to feature me a little bit more. Yeah, so she, I know, she was basically a woman boss even in the 1920s they existed she was one um it there is a quote here that she said to the director this is a man's picture and i'm just the whipped cream on top of the pie at the before he rewrote it so she really was trying to get a little bit more for the girlies which we'll talk about yeah um and i think she probably did i can't imagine what it would have been before this it probably wouldn't have had as much i don't know i guess they would have just removed that love story a little bit maybe clarabo was the only swinging lady and then they added like a little bit of something else and I don't know

Bradley:

yeah I could easily see a world here where they kept both Mary and Sylvia just there at the beginning and then the boys go off to war and then the rest of the movie is just the boys at war so I do I almost see everything that Mary does being the ambulance driver and even the god awful bubble segment like like probably was due to her and credit to her and in fighting for that I love that

Carly:

yeah so that was like a big thing that I loved and then another thing about Clara Bow that I was reading about is um Betty Boop was actually modeled after Clara Bow. And if you look at a lot of photos of Clara Bow, she has that like poofy hair. She has the like very 1920s lips. Like who am I thinking of from Drag Race? Suzy Toot. Oh, Suzy Toot. Very Suzy Toot lip makeup. Yes, exactly. So yeah, Clara Bow, I think, which is probably a little bit more of a reason why she had a song from Taylor Swift, not a whole song to her is she just seems like a really fascinating woman of the 1920s. So that was a big thing. Yeah. And then the only other thing that I saw, two other things. So Jack Powell was played by Charles Rogers, also known as Buddy Rogers, who I was like, oh, that name sounds familiar. And people called him America's boyfriend because he was just a very popular actor. And my boyfriend. Right. We all, we really liked him a little more than David. We compared David to Creepy Thin Man from Charlie's Angels. That was how, because with the sepia tones, we couldn't tell them apart all the time. So we did have to associate things with them so yeah big fan and about Buddy Rogers he was born in Olathe Kansas and Kansas you say Kansas I say and he went to wait for it the University of Kansas which is the right state wrong school in our opinion as K-State alums yeah I thought that was cool so he basically grew up right around the place that the two of us met and our love story started so yeah so that was big and then the only other thing I found about the actors are David who's played by Richard Arlen and Sylvia who's played by Jabina Ralston they were married in real life

Bradley:

oh my god I

Carly:

know and then apparently Richard just sat by as Jabina got very little screen time and maybe showed up for three days of filming I would assume

Bradley:

yeah well I I think they had good chemistry on screen yeah it was it was not the romance I was as invested in as I was although you know I feel like Mary girl I mean there's so many red flags here with Jack oh but you know the heart wants what it wants blah blah blah but you know and of course you know Jack and David are the actual you know on screen chemistry and romance but that is interesting

Carly:

yeah so those were all good things I found and I yeah it was fun to look into all these older folk I'm interested to see if we'll see them in other early on winners you know people be like oh my god there's blah blah blah so we'll have to see

Bradley:

yeah I yeah that'll be interesting thing to track of course we're gonna be like jumping around in time right yeah we're not gonna go in chronological order but yeah it will be fun to kind of stop down you know whenever we do get to those you know the second you know Best Picture winner and the third and the fourth you know I think it's gonna be fun to sort of prognosticate sort of like what was going on during the time like what are these winners in close proximity say about the times you know I think like something like Wings makes a lot of sense for the first Best Picture winner just given the subject matter and the fact that you know this was covering events that happened 10 years before but probably still fresh on the minds of the people watching this movie and so like I bet that's probably like gonna be a clear pattern for us to see you know what resonates with the audience or really the Academy voters I guess you know at that particular time like why did this win best picture and I feel like I can I can see that very clearly just given the subject matter so and from that I want to segue us to our segment which we're calling who is this for Carly and I are going to answer this question based on a demographic group to which we belong to and what Whether or not... So I will be answering for the gays. Carly will answer for the girls. Whether or not we think Wings is for the gays is Wings for the girls. And I will go first. And I will unabashedly say that Wings is for the gays. Okay? You might think I'm crazy. Okay? You may disagree. Initially, your gut instinct might be like, Brad, whoa, whoa,

Carly:

whoa. It's a war movie, Brad.

Bradley:

It's a war movie. Silence. I'm telling you. Just like Carly said at the start of this podcast. As soon as you Google Wings, you're going to be led to that gay kiss.

Carly:

Yeah.

Bradley:

And with the men's butts, that was the whipped cream on top of this whole movie. You know, we got male nudity. We got men kissing. You know, it really writes itself. This movie is for the gays. Thumbs up.

Carly:

Yeah. Are you impressed slash surprised that the first winner is for the gays?

Bradley:

I'm very surprised. I really am. Because I just assume at the top of my head, I'm like, wow, okay, it'll just be Moonlight that is for the gays.

Carly:

90 years later.

Bradley:

Yeah. So yeah, I am pleasantly surprised. I'm happy with the gay representation in this movie, even though I'm sure the 1920 audiences would strongly disagree with me.

Carly:

Oh yeah, I wonder what the reception was with that.

Bradley:

You know, I bet they all looked at that scene and was like, oh, of course. Like, oh, two good friends. Brotherly love. Wow, he really was there. War does that to

Carly:

us. Yeah.

Bradley:

Yes. That's true. Carly, is it for the girls?

Carly:

You know, Brad, it's interesting because after seeing and hearing that Clara did so much to make it more for the girls I would say you know as a girl I enjoyed watching it do I think this movie was made for the girls no

Bradley:

no

Carly:

but so in general no I don't think it's for the girls but if you do want to see an early portrayal of I don't know I don't even say a strong woman because she did a lot but she also just kind of followed around this man the whole time so no I don't think it's for the girls honestly I do think girls slash women can watch it 100% and enjoy it but But I don't think this is for the girls.

Bradley:

There we have it. And so before we reveal to you what episode two is, Carly and I are going to do our best to both rate this movie and also put it into a ranking tier. And so for our rating system, it's going to be out of five. No halfsies either. No three and a half nonsense. We're going to choose an emoji for each movie, a unique emoji for each Best Picture winner to give out a five. And so we have decided on the bubble emoji, of course. Of course. Only fitting. And I'm giving Wings a solid three out of five bubbles. What about you, Carly?

Carly:

I agree. I think three bubbles is a good ranking for this film. I don't think it's a two. I definitely don't think it's a four. I think three is a good sweet spot.

Bradley:

Again, I think if you were to seek this movie out, I think you would find it entertaining. I think there is something about it that you could watch. And will I ever desire to watch this movie again? Probably not. But I'm happy to have seen it and that this project allowed us to watch this movie where I otherwise maybe never would have watched it. watch this.

Carly:

Never, ever, ever.

Bradley:

Never, ever, ever. And for our ranking, so we're not going to try and do this sort of like 1 through 97. We're going to try and put these into a tier group. If you've ever done one of those tier makers online, we're going to be following a similar kind of structure where we have the S tier at the top. These are the truly elite, our top favorites. And then we have basically an A through F tier. And so Carly and I are going to do our best to agree, put it into one particular tier carly any initial thoughts about where we should rank this

Carly:

a through f yes a being good yes being

Bradley:

yeah not good

Carly:

freaking not good um i mean at first watch so that means like c is a middle middle ground

Bradley:

yeah and you can argue like do we need so many tiers but if we if we only had like a b and c and the s tier like you know i don't want 50 movies in one tier you know like that's that'd be crazy

Carly:

sorry what's the s tier is that like the best

Bradley:

yeah i I don't know what the S stands for, but yeah.

Carly:

Satisfactory? Yeah. So we have S, A, B, C, D, E, F. Yes. Oh my gosh. Okay. Can we just say one through seven?

Bradley:

Well, it's like letter grade, you know, with an E, you know, we can get rid of the E if you want.

Carly:

Right. The E. Yeah, you're right. Okay. Um, let me see. I'm going to write these down just so I can see a visual.

Bradley:

I'm leaning towards.

Carly:

Give me, give me 20 minutes to write down all these numbers.

Bradley:

Oh my God. It's S A B C D E F. It's an alphabetical order starting with S. Okay.

Carly:

Okay. And I'm finally done writing that. One, two. Okay. I would say it's a D. I don't think it's top, top half tier. Okay. In my opinion. What do you think?

Bradley:

Yeah, my first instinct is to put it into that C category. But knowing like this is our first one. And I will also say this rankings could be fluid. You know, we may get to later movies or and we might make some adjustments down the line. So just letting our listeners know like this is fluid. Our ratings are pretty much locked in. But in terms of the rankings, I want to allow for some like fluidity a little bit. You know, Carly?

Carly:

Now, Bradley, about for our listeners and for me, do all of these tiers have to fill up completely? No. Okay. So there can be different amounts in different tiers. Like we might not see any F movies.

Bradley:

Correct. And that's fine. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's just, it's there as an option. And, you know, you know, with us ranking 90, you know, plus movies, you know, that's why, you know, I want there to be enough tier levels that like, we can have a clear idea of like, these were our favorites. You know, these, these chunks of movies were in this kind of group or category. We feel the same or similarly about these groups of movies that are in the D as opposed to the C or whatever. But like, well, we have a strong understanding of what's the difference between a C or a D. Maybe not so much but like you know it's all arbitrary anyways it's just for us you know

Carly:

it's just for us which is what this podcast is for us so and for you our listeners

Bradley:

yeah yeah if you're listening carly i'm going to agree with you i think we should put it in the d tier

Carly:

yay

Bradley:

certainly there was a lot of d in the movie so i think it's fitting

Carly:

oh you're right

Bradley:

yeah so love that carly is there anything else you want to discuss about wings before we reveal our episode two movie um

Carly:

No, I don't think so. It was a good movie. I'm glad we watched it. I'm glad I never have to watch it again.

Bradley:

And again, if you are going to follow us along on this journey, you can find Wings on YouTube. Unfortunately, you won't be able to find every public domain. Honestly, I think the first couple Best Picture winners are in the public domain, which tells us pretty much every year the next movie is going to be in the public domain, which is kind of scary. It's kind of wild to think that this movie came out 98 years ago, and you and I here are podcasting about it nearly 100 years later.

Carly:

Clearly Clarabelle would probably didn't even dream of this.

Bradley:

Claire's like a woman podcasting, like groundbreaking, you know? She would think you're a pioneer, Carly. She really would.

Carly:

Totally.

Bradley:

okay well um i think we're ready to kind of wrap things up and let you all know in case you want to watch this movie um before you listen to our podcast if you want to follow us along but again we're not going in chronological order we are doing kind of a random number generator and picking a movie from a couple of options so um for episode two carly and i will be covering

Carly:

oliver

Bradley:

exclamation point

Carly:

oliver

Bradley:

oliver with an exclamation point um which i believe is a musical from

Carly:

and directed by wait for it a woman

Bradley:

really yeah

Carly:

unless carol reed's a man oh my god

Bradley:

it is carol reed is a man unfortunately and i did make the same mistake as i was going through you know so oh my

Carly:

god

Bradley:

peek behind the curtain for our listeners but i filled out an entire spreadsheet and did a whole column for the directors and i was curious myself like when do we get to our first woman who directed a best picture woman and i get to the name carol and i'm like here it is.

Carly:

there

Bradley:

she is she's arrived mother's here and it's just another white dude

Carly:

oh my gosh man I fell for it maybe that's how they won is because all these voters were like oh I'm voting for her

Bradley:

yeah

Carly:

you know

Bradley:

yeah we will okay so my bad we're gonna get into it we can either wipe

Carly:

that from the episode

Bradley:

or whatever no I think that's funny I think we're keeping that in so um yep this is the 1968 film classic Oliver with an exclamation point so yeah join us next time where Carly and I are gonna go into the deep end with Oliver

Carly:

Oliver thank

Bradley:

you so much for listening and see you later bye

Carly:

I love you

People on this episode

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Bradley J. Halverson

Co-host
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Carly Corio

Co-host