Yorick
"Just imagine the whole place being upset by one little Chinese girl in the scullery."Pretty easy to imagine, actually, the Chinese girl being Anna May Wong.But this would be a powerful, sad, beautiful film even without her. Superbly directed by E.A. Dupont, a sort of forgotten master of German Expressionism, with swish pans revealing the relationships between characters, tracking shots inviting the viewer into other worlds, low angles revealing significance of event and character. And some shots just plain beautiful.Much nuance here--this film only gets deeper on multiple viewings.And perhaps one of the most erotic scenes in cinema--mostly with a hand--AMW's hand of course.Gender identity buffs take note of Jimmy.The composer's commentary track is insightful, but as for the music: hit the mute button and put on Satie instead. Really. Satie will reveal much that's otherwise not revealed by the visuals.And without going on too much about it, but: Anna May Wong.
calvinnme
This is the kind of film that would have made a great early sound movie. If you get the DVD release, you may be somewhat put off by the score - I know I was. There are two major musical numbers in the film, and it would have really accentuated them to have the music of the times in the film rather than the modern score that just doesn't seem to fit. Unfortunately, British films didn't convert to sound until 1930, so this film remains as a "silent musical".It's a very good film that is basically about how life goes on, and today's celebrities and scandals are quickly forgotten tomorrow. It also shows the flimsy basis in many cases for being considered talented. The female headliner of the night club is basically there because she is the owner's girlfriend and is being carried to a large degree by her dance partner. When he decides to leave England and try to make it on Broadway, the owner knows the score and seeks a novelty to fill in what he has lost. He sees Anna May Wong's character dancing in the night club scullery and fires her for it, but later he realizes that maybe an exotic act is what he needs to draw an audience. He rehires her as a dancer. He is captivated by both the girl and her act, and at this point the film takes a sharp turn and becomes a bit of a crime drama and mystery.Anna May Wong is probably the only performer most American audiences will recognize with one fleeting exception. At the beginning of the film there is a heavyset customer of the nightclub who is complaining about a dirty dish. That complaining customer is Charles Laughton in a very small and very early role.
Terrell-4
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.
Neil Doyle
ANNA MAY WONG, JAMESON THOMAS and GILDA GRAY are at the center of a love triangle in PICCADILLY, a silent film that is much more modern in style than most films of the period. The tempo is a bit faster paced than usual (although there are still spots that drag), and the character relationships are not explored fully, which makes the ending rather ambiguous when the murderer turns out to be a character never fully defined.But somehow these murky elements don't effect the overall power of the storytelling here. It starts briskly with some quick views of the Piccadilly area of London at night (tinted blue) accompanied by a perky score that is sometimes a bit too busy throughout. After the credits it switches to sepia for much of the story involving a nightclub act by GILDA GRAY and CYRIL RITCHARD that is disbanded when manager JAMESON THOMAS discharges Ritchard who is becoming too attached to his dancing partner. Thomas then happens to spy ANNA MAY WONG giving an impromptu dance before her co-workers in the galley and decides to hire her as a dance specialty, much to the dismay of Gilda Gray.Wong performs an erotic dance in gilded Chinese costume in an extraordinarily well photographed scene which is met with audience approval and this sets up the jealousy angle between Wong and Gray. In the meantime, we catch the furtive glances of a Chinese man who assists Anna's act and seems intent on throwing dagger-like glances at the manager whom he knows is entering into a romantic relationship with her.The end result is a crime of passion that is handled with some subtlety by director Arnold Bennett. There's an almost Agatha Christie touch to the courtroom ending which has a plot twist for a final surprise.As others have said, this is indeed a "hidden treasure" among the silent screen films and is really worth watching unless silent films are not your thing at all. The background score is a bit too busy at times but it does help to set the mood for many of the club scenes.
