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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 37148
Released: June 6, 2006 |
| Our Price: $4.99 |
| Used Price: $4.23 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Cmdr. Frank "Spig" Wead was a pioneer aviator, renowned screenwriter (whose works included John Ford's They Were Expendable) and a man of war. The skies beckoned Spig to action; a crippling injury ultimately left him powerless to act, propelling him to discover the power of his pen. He was talented, driven, flawed, a friend of Ford ? and the subject of this compassionate biography. John Wayne plays Spig and Ford directs The Wings of Eagles, which also offers a fascinating glimpse into the ways and world of Ford: Ward Bond plays moviemaker John Dodge, a role modelled on Ford. Maureen O'Hara, Wayne's five-time co-star (including Ford's The Quiet Man), and Dan Dailey (of Ford's 1952 What Price Glory?) play Spig's indomitable wife Min and cigar-chomping sidekick "Jughead" Carson.
Description of The Wings of Eagles:
John Ford had a big emotional investment in The Wings of Eagles, and his favorite star John Wayne rewarded the director with one of his strongest performances. The subject is Frank "Spig" Wead, Naval aviation legend turned Hollywood screenwriter, who had written Ford's very good 1932 movie Air Mail and his magnificent WWII elegy They Were Expendable (1945). On the latter, Ford made the extraordinary gesture of putting Wead's screenplay credit on the same main-title panel as his own.
Ford was fond of exploring the theme of "victory in defeat." Wead's life was made to order for that. The hell-raising flyboy shenanigans, and his flailing marriage to a scrappy Irish redhead (The Quiet Man's Maureen O'Hara reporting for duty), were abruptly curtailed by a fall that left him with severe spinal damage. He should never have been able to walk again, but he fought his way back to limited mobility and built a new career as a writer. And when WWII broke out, Wead talked his way into uniform once more and made a key contribution to the Pacific air war.
It would be satisfying to report that The Wings of Eagles is a triumph--that the broad comedy of the early reels cuts brilliantly against the raw pain of the Weads' marriage, the grief of a family broken and mended and broken again, the film's specters of death and deep frustration. There are powerful moments--especially the complex, scalding scene of the newly injured Spig dismissing Min (O'Hara) from his life. But the low comedy is very low, the visual style sometimes stark but more often just drab, and the screenplay is very choppy about the passage of time. Ford-Wayne pal Ward Bond turns up as a crusty movie director with a walking stick full of booze, an office full of Western memorabilia, and the nudge-nudge moniker "John Dodge." --Richard T. Jameson
The Wings of Eagles Reviews:
The Wings of Eagles 
2008-06-02 - A awesome war film envolving John Wayne and Ms. O' Hara! A must have for fans of the duke!
The best of John Wayne
2007-10-05 - One of my favorite JW movies. I saw it when it was a new production... way back when... and it is still a great insight into an American hero, Spig Wead.
The Wings of Eagles
2007-09-08 - This is a great war movie and I enjoyed it very much also a great acting job by John Wayne, Dan Dailey and Maureen O'Hara and a great supporting cast. They were even funny sometimes.
I never received my order. 
2007-07-03 - What else can I say - I've never gotten the DVD I ordered, The Wings of Eagles.
Joyce
John Wayne 
2007-03-23 - This movie was all about the military character John Wayne was portraying. Not so much about airplanes. I was disappointed there were not more airplanes. It's all about Army vs. Navy, I did not relate to it too well.
