Piccadilly [1929] [DVD]

Filmed at the very start of the talkie era Piccadilly was released in both silent and talkie version this is the silent version.

Anna May Wong dominates the film as Sho Sho a Chinese dancer but there are other fine performances from Jameson Thomas as "Valentine Wimot" the owner of the Piccadilly night club. The excellent scenes in the Piccadilly take us back to the exuberance of the flapper era, although the famed exotic dancing of Wong falls a little short of modern concepts.

For a silent film "Piccadilly" has complex relationships, especially between Sho Sho and Jim (King Hou Chang) who seems to live with her and could be either her lover or her brother.

We are fortunate that the fine production, acting and sets are presented in a near perfect tinted transfer.

From the opening credits you get to see how far ahead of its time this film was. The use of buses for stating the personnel involved in the film, was a stroke of genius. The restoration by BFI is outstanding and the film feels so fresh. What is obvious about Piccadilly is that it was made as a silent film and Dupont put all the energies into the visual side of the film. In doing so I feel that he set the standard for talkies, even though I do not think Piccadilly works as a sound film.

It seems to be a film about beautiful people (and Anna May Wong is certainly that) and there is much emphasis on the trappings of money. However. Although Ian Cristie's sleeve note suggest that the storyline is progressive, I beg to differ.

Set at a time where the social classes were more physically separated from one another, we can understand the the distance between the lives of Valentine and Shosho's background. For example when the two visit Limehouse we catch a glimpse of poorer people gathered around a brazier. We do not see their faces but we are supposed to sympathise with their poverty.

Shosho, however, is the stereotypical mysterious Oriental who deserves more than just being a scullery maid. And, as such, she is a likable character. However once she does climb the social ladder our view of her changes. She becomes scheming and nasty (this reverses the role of her and Mabel, who she usurps and who is portrayed as a spoilt rich girl at the beginning of the film). In the end, no matter how beautiful she appeared, we are left in no doubt that Shosho has it in her to be a `scheming bitch'. The role of her sidekick, Jim (who is also Chinese) also suggests that these people `should know their place', even though we are made to sympathise with him.

When we do get to see the faces of the poor they are invariable an ugly lot, either physically (as in the case of Bessie) or morally. This brings me to another opinion in the sleeve notes. there is a scene in a bar where a black man (an actual black person as opposed to a white person, blacked - up, which was the norm at the time) dancing with a white woman (and we are left in no doubt that the woman is a prostitute). Their dance is broken up by the boorish pub-owner, who is white and from the lower classes. Cristie seems to suggest that this scene shows Dupont in a progressive light. I don't think so. It suggests to me that Dupont saw the wealthy as the guardians of moral virtue who could accept a foreigner (even stereotypically) whilst those in the lower classes where either the deserving poor, huddled around a fire or boorish brutes with narrow-minded views.

This last point is something that I feel is relevant to today. The portrayal of poorer people by the media, especially the liberal media, is either of a `deserving poor' or as overweight, loud, bigots. There is another scene that touches on contemporary morality: An overweight diner (a young Charles Laughton), who is one of the wealthy patron of the Piccadilly Club, is only interested in stuffing his face rather than the two stars dancing on the floor. Again we are provided with a caricature that seems cheap, but fits in well with much of today's thinking.

Piccadilly is an outstanding film. It has a gripping story line (one that would have been suited to a later Hitchcock film), the scenes are beautifully shot and in many ways it was well ahead of its time. But it was also a product of its time, which illustrated the divide between the wealthy and the poor.

Sadly, although society has become enlightened since then, many of the prejudices, portrayed in the film, have been recently resurrected and are the common parlance of the chattering classes.

There are three reasons to watch Piccadilly, a 1929 British silent backstage melodrama. The performance of Anna May Wong is primary. She's a knockout as Shosho, a Chinese dishwasher in a posh London nightclub who gets a chance to show how she can dance, and then becomes a star. Wong is so charismatic, so fine a performer and so confident an actress, that you might wonder whatever happened to her. But there's more to Piccadilly than Wong. Perhaps not too much, but enough to enjoy the passing parade of dated movie choreography and the moody atmosphere of transplanted German expressionism. The downside is the story...one of those behind-the-scenes melodramas of entertainers and impresarios, stilted and dated, filled with tremulous glances, suspicious glares, clutched hankies and faces turned away.

Valentine Wilmot (Jameson Thomas) owns the Piccadilly Club, the poshest of the posh, where the sophisticates of London crème de la crème, dressed to the nines, come to dance and dine, and to watch Mabel & Vic, "London's Greatest Dance Attraction." Wilmot is a tough, smooth, perfectionist. He made the Piccadilly what it is. He discovered Mabel Greenfield (Gilda Gray) and made stars out of her and her dance partner, Vic Smiles (Cyril Ritchard). While he appreciates Mabel's talents, his nightclub comes first. Mabel really loves the guy and Vic really loves Mabel. ("My dear, I'm simply mad about you!") One night a diner is given a dirty plate. He makes a scene; Wilmot is furious and storms into the kitchen and scullery. There he sees Shosho, dancing on a table for the other workers when she should have been washing dishes. He fires her. Then he has second thoughts. Shosho has something that the impresario in Wilmot tells him might make a star attraction...exotic, sensuous, unusual. It's not long before Shosho is a smash. By this time Vic has left, Shosho finds it no trouble at all to delightfully snare Wilmot (in probably the best scene in the movie) and Mabel is jealous. Into this hot stew of fervid emotions, a shot rings out, scandal ensues, a trial is held...justice, both criminal and moral, is served up. And in that great tradition of melodramatic showbiz...life goes on with a million more stories undoubtedly waiting to be told. The storyline is a slog.

Still, the big dance number with Mabel & Vic at the start of the movie is a delight of dated style. Mabel and Vic each come prancing down the two grand staircases that bracket the Piccadilly's elegant dance floor, he in tails, she in a swirling gown, and off they go. It's one of those tricky, ricky-ticky fast numbers where elbows and feet fly about, complete with winking glances of mischievous fun. It goes on and on, with Vic and Mabel each having a chance to shine. Mabel flirts and shows her legs. Vic with slicked back hair seductively grins with the silent nasal charm of Jack Buchanan or Noël Coward. It's the kind of well-meaning, "classy" dance that Fred Astaire drove a stake through four years later in Flying Down to Rio. However, watch this number with affection. It does no harm and at one time held the paying movie customers in thrall.

The look of the film is all moody atmosphere. This isn't enough to salvage the movie by itself, but it gives Piccadilly a lot of visual class.

And then there's Anna May Wong, an actress of talent, style and screen presence. She's featured in the billing but she dominates the movie. She comes straight through the camera to us, sexy and innocent, calculating and surprised, whose dancing captures us and whose acting tells us here is a woman to pay attention to. As an actress of Chinese descent, she hadn't a chance in Hollywood except as a stereotype. In the Twenties she finally left for Europe and had a few star roles in Germany and England, but then returned to Hollywood with a contract that seemed to assure her of star Hollywood roles. The contract didn't say major star roles with star male leads. She lost the leads in The Good Earth and Dragon Seed because producers said she looked too Chinese. She had to watch as Luise Rainer and Katherine Hepburn starred, both gussied up in some of the oddest "Chinese" eyelids and makeup Hollywood ever devised. Anna May Wong wound up playing characters with names like Su Lin, Lin Ying, Lan Ying and, in an explosion of Hollywood creativity, Lan Ying Lin. (I'm not kidding: Impact, Bombs Over Burma, Dangerous to Know and Daughter of Shanghai.) Then there was Ling Moy, Kim Ling, A-hsing, Lois Ling and, of course, Chinese Woman. (Daughter of the Dragon, Island of Lost Men, The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery and Producers' Showcase)

So put Piccadilly in the DVD player, probably with your finger on the fast-forward button, to watch Mabel & Vic in their big number and, most of all, to watch a woman who could have been a great star if it hadn't been for Hollywood.

The DVD restoration looks much better than one might expect. However, you'll probably best enjoy the screen music, written for the restoration, if you also enjoy the incessant chatter of those golf announcers who can't keep their mouths shut. The music never stops. This is one DVD where it pays to watch the extras before you watch the movie. The audio is not good on "Dangerous to Know: The Life and Legacy of Anna May Wong," but the feature is informative.