Silent-era classics come to DVD

A couple of classics from the silent era lead off movies that have arrived on DVD and Blu-ray this week.

"Wings" (Paramount, 1927, b/w, silent, $24.99). This World War I flyboy yarn — the first film to win the best-picture Academy Award — has two small-town rivals, one poor (Charles "Buddy" Rogers), the other wealthy (Richard Arlen), at odds over the same pretty girl (Jobyna Ralston). Meanwhile, Rogers virtually ignores the tomboy neighbor who loves him (top-billed, vivacious Clara Bow, famed as the "It" girl).

But forget all that on-the-ground soap-opera stuff, and especially the sometimes lame comic relief. Things really heat up after Rogers and Arlen join the Army Air Corps, become pals while enduring the arduous training (with young Gary Cooper as an ill-fated bunkmate) and ship out for Europe as combat pilots. (With Bow turning up as an ambulance-driving nurse!)

The exciting aerial sequences are still impressive after all these years — as directed by WWI flying combat veteran William A. Wellman — and no doubt account for the Oscar win.

The print has been painstakingly restored and includes tinting and flashes of color that replicate the 1927 original release. The DVD offers two musical options, an orchestral score (with sound effects) based on the film's original music by J.S. Zamecnik, and Gaylord Carter's equally delightful organ score. (BYU film archivist James V. D'Arc is among the historians interviewed in the making-of featurette.)

Extras: full frame, featurette (also on Blu-ray with two more featurettes. $29.99)

"The Squaw Man" (Warner Archive, 1914/1931, b/w, silent/sound, $19..95). Legendary filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille ("The Ten Commandments") so loved the story of this 1905 hit play that he filmed the melodrama three times. The first and last are collected here, the 1914 silent and 1931 sound versions. (He did a second silent version in 1918.)

The convoluted soapy story has an English aristocrat taking the rap for his cousin's embezzlement because he loves the thief's wife. He heads for the anonymity of the American West where he tangles with a villain, marries a Native American and has a child. Eventually, his name is cleared as his cousin dies, and his true love arrives in America to find him.

The silent was DeMille's first film, belied by some awkward staging (of course, narrative movies hadn't been around very long, either, and everyone was testing the waters). Dustin Farnum stars and it's more interesting now as a historical document than entertainment but offers an idea of what audiences flocked to in the early 1900s.