RetroClips

Wings won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Picture and remains the only fully silent film to do so. Director William Wellman, a World War I combat pilot himself, insisted on shooting real aerial combat with cameras mounted directly on the planes rather than using models, which meant training his stars, including Clara Bow and a young, then-unknown Gary Cooper in a small early role, to fly. The production borrowed actual Army Air Corps pilots and aircraft, and several stunt fliers were injured during filming chasing shots no one had attempted before.