Check out this picture from the very first Academy Awards ceremony!

Here in the middle of the week—and especially at this very early time in FlicksChick.com’s life—I thought it would be helpful to share some fun facts about the first movie we will discuss, Wings (1927, Paramount Famous Lasky).

The first few movies to win the Academy Award for Best Picture are relatively obscure (except, perhaps, for All Quiet on the Western Front, which was remade in the late 1970s and often finds itself part of a high school or college curriculum). Wings, most commonly accepted as the first BP winner, didn’t even technically win a “Best Picture” Oscar. Instead, it took home an award for Outstanding Picture, Production, while a film entitled Sunrise captured the then-equivalent award for Best Unique and Artistic Production, the only movie to ever receive this title since the Academy decided to drop the award after the first year. The other Academy Award given to Wings was for Engineering Effects, another now-defunct category.

The first Academy Awards show was held in Los Angeles on May 16, 1929, to honor the films and filmmakers of 1927-28. The ceremony was even more exclusive than it is now, and no such La La Land-or-Moonlight confusion would have been possible since the winners had all been announced before the event, which was broadcast neither on the popular radio nor on the newly invented television (which the vast majority of people did not yet have in their homes anyway).

What first strikes viewers of Wings is that it is a silent film, a movie experience very foreign to us today. In fact, the first full-length motion picture to incorporate synchronized dialogue (and, hence, earn the nickname “talkie”) was a contemporary of Wings, The Jazz Singer (1927). Though most available copies of Wings have been remastered with sound effects and music, original viewers would have taken in an absolutely soundless piece of art, which was accompanied by a specifically customized live organ score and sound effects created in-house. What a totally bizarre concept that noise had to be created in a theater setting!

Another notable aspect of Wings is its aerial footage. Considering that Orville and Wilbur Wright had flown their airplane not even 30 years previously (1903), what Wings does in the air is stunning. Admittedly, the film’s plane material does distract the viewer a bit from the movie’s storyline, but it’s worth it as it is a treat to see some of the earliest military planes clash in fiery duels in the clouds.

For more detailed thoughts on Wings and its significance, check out the full post this weekend!