FILM

Discovery Green and KUHF-FM present KUHF Silent Film Concerts. At the Anheuser-Busch Stage and Fondren Performance Space. Houston Public Radio presents a series of silent film screenings accompanied by live music. Back by popular demand, KUHF Houston Public Radio presents a new Silent Film Concert Series featuring unique film presentations combining silent films from the 1920s with live, original scores composed and performed by Texas musicians.

Friday, October 22:  Golden Arm Trio and guest artists perform an original score to Wings, (1927, 139 min. NR) winner of the first Best Picture Oscar featuring the girl with It, Clara Bow. Filmed on location in Texas.

Set during WWI, this film revolves around two friends who fall in love with the same girl. When they are recruited to fight, both train to be pilots in the American Expeditionary Corp. They remain friends to battle the Germans but their association to the girl threatens their own relationship.Awards: Won 2 Oscars (1927-8) including Best Picture.

Wings was one of the late silent era's epic spectacles - a combination adventure/romance that took the viewer back a mere ten years to what was, at the time, the most pivotal and traumatic event of the new century: World War I. At the time of its August 12, 1927 premiere, Wings was already a member of an endangered species. The Jazz Singer was in the can and would bow less than three months later, ushering in the era of the "talkie." While some of the artier silent films would be able to hang on into the next decade, mainstream movies made a fast shift to sound. By the time Wings received the first-ever Best Picture Academy Award in 1929, silent films were rapidly becoming passé.

Were it not for the prestige of the award, Wings might be, like more than 90% of its contemporaries, a forgotten movie. The film's hallmark aerial dogfights and ground battle scenes would have gone largely unviewed since the late'20s. Admittedly, this movie has not aged as well as many of its contemporaries, but it's not hard to understand why it was accorded the Oscar (a term that, by the way, had not yet been coined). Not only is it visually stunning, but the story - which at first seems obvious and by-the-numbers - closes on a note of bitter irony that underscores the madness of war. The script, at least in some aspects, is more intelligent than it is sometimes given credit for.

The movie begins in an anonymous small American town, where Jack Powell (Charles Rogers) and David Armstrong (Richard Arlen) are rivals for the affection of local beauty Sylvia Lewis (Jobyna Ralston). David has the upper hand in this romantic engagement - Sylvia prefers him for both his looks and his money - but Jack misreads the signs and thinks he's her favorite. Of course, when it comes to love, Jack is blind; he's oblivious to the fact that Mary Preston (Clara Bow), the girl next door, is head-over-heels for him. She's not subtle in conveying her attraction, but Jack doesn't notice.

Enticed by patriotic fervor and the excitement of adventure, Jack and David join the armed forces to become pilots. Although initially antagonistic toward one another because of their shared passion for Sylvia, they gradually become friends. Soon, they're flying missions together and guarding each other's backs both in the air and on the ground. Meanwhile, Mary has entered the war effort as an ambulance driver; one memorable sequence has her "saving" an intoxicated Jack from the amorous advances of a woman in France. As the war reaches its climax, circumstances place Jack and David in the air support for the Battle of Saint-Mihiel.

At the time Wings was produced, the concept of air travel was considered glamorous, adventurous, and a little dangerous. After all, the first transatlantic flight didn't occur until 1919 and Lindbergh's historic trip from New York to Paris didn't occur until a few months before the theatrical release of Wings. Even today, with their air clogged with planes, the profession of fighter pilot retains its patina of romance - consider that one of the cornerstones to Tom Cruise's status as a movie star was Top Gun. The filmmakers of Wings - director William A. Wellman and screenwriters Hope Loring and Louis Lighton - recognized as early as 1927 that the world's fascination with this new form of travel would make an excellent backdrop for a motion picture.

With its depictions of dogfights and re-creations of epic land battles, Wings proved to be in the earliest class of Hollywood spectacle pictures. It's a big, bold piece of entertainment that explores the limits of what could be achieved in a motion picture. This was a time when special effects were far more primitive, so much of what appears on screen transpired in actuality. For certain scenes, the actors were required to sit in the cockpit while the plane was in flight. Many of the dogfights required expert stunt flying. And the climactic battle was as accurate a re-enactment as there has ever been on film.

Wings' historical importance should not be overlooked. Although not among the "popular" silent film titles, this is in many ways more representative of the state of filmmaking in the late 1920s, both in terms of what it could and could not accomplish. Obvious technical considerations aside, it holds up surprisingly well after so many years and is not hard to recommend for anyone with an interest in film history and World War I.

GOLDEN ARM TRIO is an Austin, Texas based band led by composer, bandleader, pianist and drummer Graham Reynolds. Graham and the group constantly work in theater, dance, film, concert halls, and nightclubs.

THE BAND is a loose collective of which Graham is the only permanent member with some outstanding musicians as regularly featured additions (see band members). The band has toured throughout the United States and Europe and has released two critically acclaimed CD's.

FILM scores include feature films, dozens of short films, animated shorts, and more than 20 silent films. Film collaborators have included Richard Linklater, Steve Collins and Luke Savisky. This summer includes the score for Richard Linklater’s “A Scanner Darkly”, starring Keannu Reaves.

PERFORMANCE highlights include a live appearance on NPR’s Talk of the Nation and a night at the Kennedy Center. The eclectic nature of the band has led to double bills ranging from Ken Vandermark to The Sea and the Cake to Merle Haggard guitarist Redd Volkeart.

COMPOSITIONS by Graham Reynolds include four symphonies, two operas, a violin concerto, more than a dozen one movement string quartets, and countless chamber music pieces. The collaborative 20-CD Box Set “The Golden Hornet Project”, was chosen as a “Top Ten CD’s Under the Radar” by Rolling Stone.com. Golden Arm Trio also won Best Orchestral Album from Kansas City Pitch Weekly.

THEATER ranging from recorded incidental music to fully scored musicals with live accompaniment on more than a dozen productions. Awards include the Frederick Lowe Music Theater Award, Austin Critics’ Table, and B. Iden Payne. Graham is the resident composer with Salvage Vanguard Theater and a company member with the Rude Mechs.

DANCE collaborators have included choreographers Yakov Sharir, Ellen Bartel, and Andrea Ariel.