To write about people in the 1920s and 1930s I attempt to immerse myself in the period as completely as I can. I listen to the music. I read novels and essays published at the time and, thanks to the British Newspaper Archive, also newspapers, which are particularly valuable for gauging what the most popular preoccupations were. They discuss the political issues of the day of course, but they also offer the reader crime, disaster, scandal, popular sporting events and they try to sell them all sorts of stuff - houses, shoes, corsets, or even the temptingly named bile beans.
Along with radio, cinema fascinated much of the public, so I watch feature films and documentaries from the era too. I have watched quite a few silent films from the 1920s, partly to try and help me appreciate what experiencing a first talkie might have been like. Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Blackmail’, as featured in my second novel, would have been the first for many people.
Two silent films set in London, 'Piccadilly' (1929), and ‘Underground’ (1928) have been particularly valuable in preparing for my books by showing me what everything looked like at the time - clothes, transport, stations - the former even has a scene set in a bar based on one of the locations I use more than once in my books - Charlie Brown’s pub in Limehouse. But the picture that has had the greatest impact on me has nothing at all to do with London. It was the 1927 US film ‘Wings’ starring Clara Bow, the biggest movie star of the time.
‘Wings’ is a war film which achieves a level of authenticity that hasn’t been matched since and probably never can be, despite all the CGI tricks available to modern directors. William A Wellman was brought in by Paramount because, although relatively inexperienced as a director, he had served as a pilot during the Great War. Top box-office draw Clara Bow provided the ‘name’, and she was given two handsome co-stars, ‘America’s boyfriend’ the beautiful Buddy Rogers, and Richard Arlen. A then unknown Gary Cooper has a brief cameo, but he was a big star by the time the film was released, which is why he is on the billing despite appearing for less than two minutes.
What another 1927 film, ‘The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands’ did for the war at sea, ‘Wings’ does for war in the air. Thanks to the co-operation of the US government they were able to use aircraft, tanks and uniforms that had actually been used during the war, only eight years previously. Many of those involved, including thousands of extras, had personal experience of the conflict and cared deeply about it, so this film can never be beaten for authenticity.
Despite the government help, the film cost Paramount over $2m to make which was a stupefying sum at the time. The restored film is awe-inspiring and genuinely exciting. It’s 144 minutes long, but doesn’t drag for a moment. Some of the scenes between Rogers and Arlen can appear homoerotic to a modern audience, reflecting perhaps the director’s grief for lost comrades. For a 1927 American film to show such unselfconscious affection between two men was quite something.
Overall, there's nothing special about the love story - the film was designed to be a spectacle, a sensation - and that's what it is. The flying sequences are absolutely incredible, because there was no trickery involved in their creation. Cameras were mounted in the cockpits and the two male leads actually flew. 23-year-old Rogers earned his director’s permanent respect by learning to fly just for the movie and completing 98 hours flying time even though he was so terrified, he would throw up shortly after each landing. Where aeroplanes came to grief in the film, it was the work of the best stunt pilots available - there were no model planes except the ones used for machine-gun practice.
The film was a huge success with the public for years, and was the recipient of the first ever Academy Award for Best Picture. Like the audiences at the time, I found it genuinely exciting to watch. I was actually surprised by how exciting I found it - it's just a 98-year-old silent film after all. I will be looking for a cinema when it turns 100 I think.
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