Piccadilly

Plot synopsis:
Valentine Wilmot's London nightclub and restaurant, Piccadilly Circus, is a great success due to his star attraction, dancing partners Mabel (Gilda Gray) and Vic (Cyril Ritchard). One night, a dissatisfied diner (Charles Laughton) disrupts Mabel's solo with his loud complaint about a dirty plate. When Wilmot investigates, he finds Shosho (Anna May Wong) distracting the other dishwashers with her dancing. He fires her on the spot.
After the performance, Vic tries to persuade Mabel to become his partner offstage as well as on, and to go to Hollywood with him. She coldly rebuffs him, as she is romantically involved with Wilmot. That night, Wilmot summons Vic to his office. Before Wilmot can fire him, Vic quits.
That turns out to be disastrous for the nightclub. The customers had come to see Vic, not Mabel. Business drops off dramatically. In desperation, Wilmot hires Shosho to perform a Chinese dance. She insists that her boyfriend Jim play the accompanying music. Shosho is an instant sensation, earning a standing ovation after her first performance.
Both Mabel and Jim become jealous of the evident attraction between Shosho and Wilmot. Mabel breaks off her relationship with Wilmot.
One night, Shosho invites Wilmot to be the first to see her new rooms. Mabel has followed the couple and waits outside. After Wilmot leaves, she persuades Jim to let her in. She pleads with her romantic rival to give Wilmot up, saying he is too old for her, but Shosho replies that it is Mabel who is too old, and that she will keep him. When Mabel reaches into her purse for a handkerchief, Shosho sees a pistol inside and grabs a dagger used as a wall decoration. Frightened, Mabel picks up the gun, then faints.
The next day, the newspapers report that Shosho has been murdered. Wilmot is charged with the crime. During the ensuing trial, he admits that the pistol is his, but refuses to divulge what happened that night. Jim testifies that Wilmot was Shosho's only visitor. Things look bad. Then Mabel insists on telling her story. However, she can recall nothing after fainting until she found herself running in the streets. Realizing that either Mabel or Jim must be lying, the judge summons Jim. By then, however, Jim has shot himself at Shosho's mausoleum. As he lies dying, he confesses he killed Shosho.

Tags: romantic, murder

Review:
Tracking through a bustling nightclub kitchen, back into the scullery, amidst steaming washtubs, the camera finds a woman in torn stockings dancing a slow shimmy on a tabletop: a slow upward pan reveals the alluring Anna May Wong in a Pabstian moment of erotic revelation.
In the course of this drama, director E.A. DuPont devises several more such clock-stopping moments as the star poses behind an etched glass screen or stretches her body in a geometrically beaded gown.When Wong makes her debut before the nightclub audience-- sporting an ersatz Thai get-up and fluttering her fingers this way and that---it is clear that she really can't dance at all, ironically making DuPont's contribution seem even more impressive .
[Famed as the actual creator of the shimmy, Gray demonstrates it here with lots of vigorous jiggling.]Paralleling her rise to dance stardom, Wong's wardrobe gets increasingly elegant, while the conflicts mount: quarreling over nightclub impresario Jameson Thomas [a nicely subtle performance], Gray argues "He's too old for you!" and Wong ripostes "You're too old for him." Both have a point.
Eventually, with the help of some Limehouse ruffians, a gun, and a dagger, it all ends in a courtoom.Apart from a brief appearance by Charles Laughton as a fastidious diner, DuPont pays no attention to the café society patrons of the Piccadilly Club.
But it is Anna May Wong's dazzling performance that stands out, even above everything else in the movie.Set in the "Piccadilly" night club, the story ostensibly stars Jameson Thomas as the club owner, and Gilda Gray as one of the club's star dancers.
The beginning of the film is tedious, choosing to dwell a bit long on setting the scene, but once the main characters are introduced and the story begins to unfold, it captures and holds your attention.
She treats him like a dog, but they obviously have a close bond and need each other.As a film in general, "Picadilly" is lacking on a few levels, but it is completely redeemed by Anna May Wong's presence.
This film shows what Wong was capable of, and the talent Hollywood wasted by not giving her starring roles.
Mabel gets jealous and leaves Piccadilly...but still wants Wilmot but he's falling for Shosho...This movie is a showcase for Anna May Wong.
She steels the scenes from the main actors (Jameson Thomas and Gilda Gray) and turns the film about a story about her character.But, and this is a big BUT.
PICCADILLY (1929), a fun-to-watch account of a sexual triangle which unfolds, to fatal effect, in a London nightclub - all pencil thin moustaches, louche owners and jazz dancing.
As directed by Dupont it is a film which showcases its lurid (if ultimately unconvincing) storyline very well and entertainingly enough, even if one can imagine a Von Sternberg version using the same elements, which included orientalism in the form of Anna May Wong as an exotic temptress, much more effectively.
In the few silent films I've seen, the acting has been very "stage acting" over the top and dramatic, so I was expecting to see more hams than I'd see in a butcher, but I got some really great performances, I was really impressed, especially by King Ho Chang who played Jim. Right, plot summary then, the film is about the Piccadilly Club losing it's main attraction, a dancer named Victor, and discovering his successor in the club's own scullery.
What then follows is a typical love triangle plot, between the new dancer, Shosho, the club owner, Valentine and Victor's old dance partner, Mabel.
Notice her controlled facial expressions and body movements....they are very low key in a time when acting was often over the top and bordering on "hammy".The story concerns the rise of Ms. Wong (Shosho) as a dancer and inamorata of nightclub owner, Valentin (Jameson Thomas)....much to the distress of Mabel (Gilda Gray) as the featured act at the Picadilly and also a lover of the owner.
In London, Mabel Greenfield (Gilda Gray) and her partner Victor Smiles (Cyrill Ritchard) are the lead attractions of the Piccadilly Club with their show of dance, bringing the high-society to watch them dancing and have dinner.
When a client irritated with a dirty plate disturbs the show, Valentine investigates the restaurant and the kitchen, and he finally ends in the scullery where he sees the Chinese dishwasher Shosho (Anna May Wong) dancing on a table and the other employees watching her instead of working.
However, Mabel alone is incapable to hold the clients and Valentine invites the exotic Shosho to dance in Piccadilly Club.
She is acclaimed by the audience and has favorable reviews and sooner she catches Valentine; the envious and jealous Mabel decides to pay a visit to Shosho to tell her that she is in love with Valentine, and a tragedy happens."Piccadilly" is a great silent romance, with a complex screenplay that discloses sexual tension among several characters ending in a tragedy.
One of the last British silent films casts Gilda Gray and Anna May Wong as rivals for Jameson Thomas owner of the fabled Piccadilly nightclub located, where else but on Piccadilly Circus in London.
Thomas as owner of the nightclub fires half of his club attraction of the dancing team of Mabel and Vic. Vic is played by Cyril Ritchard and he's got a roving eye which distresses Mabel who is Gilda Gray.
It distresses Thomas even more who likes Gilda, sort of.But when Gray as a solo act doesn't bring in the customers, Thomas looks for a replacement and finds it in the slinky, sexy, sultry Anna May Wong.
Wong had previously worked in the scullery at the club and got fired when she did a little impromptu dance entertainment for the staff and a customer complained about a dirty plate.
But Thomas and his hormones remembered Wong and they begin an association professional and later personal.This interracial triangle ends real bad with one of them dead and the other on trial for murder.Two prominent people who had great careers in film had small parts.
He's the diner who complains about the dirty plate he was given, spoiling Ritchard and Gray's dance and leading to Thomas's discovery of Wong.
No doubt this man was going to have a great career.There is one other prominent role of significance, that of King Hou Chang as Wong's original boy friend who carries a torch bigger than the one Jameson Thomas has.
The modern-sounding music score is distracting in most places, and some of the dialogue is horrendous.There's a very suspenseful, well-acted scene when Wilmot invites Anna May Wong's character, Shosho, up to his office to discuss having her dance at his club.
I thought the scene was worthy of Hitchcock, and follows his definition of true suspense: The audience knows something that a character doesn't.The finale, I felt, tries to go a long way out of its way to exonerate Mabel (a white woman) for the murder of Shosho (a Chinese woman) by making Jim (also Chinese) guilty so that the film could have a "happy white people ending." However, logic dictates that Mabel should be guilty of this crime of passion.
A fascinating story of the rise of a young Chinese woman from scullery maid to feature dancer at a posh London nightclub, "Piccadilly" is a good introduction to Ms. Wong's many charms for those who have not had the pleasure before, or for those many who enjoyed her work in 1932's "Shanghai Express" and have found it hard to see her elsewhere.
Devilishly debonair Valentine Wilmott (Jameson Thomas), a Ronald Colman type with pencil moustache and oil-slick hair, is the owner of Piccadilly, London's top nightspot, at which the glamorously-monickered dance team of Clive and Mabel (Cyrill Ritchard and the real-life queen of the shimmy, Gilda Gray) are the resident dance team.
Things turn sour for Mabel, however, after Clive dissolves the partnership in a huff after she rebuffs his advances once too often, and then Valentine starts getting cosy with his new female dancer, the sultry Sho-Sho (Anna May Wong).
While there are some nice touches in the script – Wilmott, for instance, after watching Clive and Mabel's unconvincing dance performance, travels from club to kitchen to scullery, where he spies Sho-Sho performing a sultry shimmy on a worktop for the entertainment of her workmates, thus linking most of the protganists and depictng their relative social status in one economical and effective sequence – once Bennett has to concentrate on driving the storyline forward, he seems too willing to fall back on increasingly melodramatic plot points that must have been clichéd even back in '29.Although third-billed, Anna May Wong is far and away the star of this movie.
Gilda Gray, the star of the piece – although Thomas gets more screen-time than both of the ladies – gives a melodramatic performance by comparison.
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 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.
London "Piccadilly Club" proprietor Jameson Thomas (as Valentine Wilmot) is having an affair with the female half of his star dancing duo "Mabel and Vic", shimmying Gilda Gray (as Mabel "Mab" Greenfield).
But, Thomas has discovered a new dancer in his kitchen, sexy scullery maid Anna May Wong (as Shosho).
Eventually, passion leads to murder.Director E.A. Dupont and photographer Werner Brandes are superb, in their final collaboration; they give "Piccadilly" a great, artful style.
Small bits of business, like Mr. Ritchard slitting a deeper crease into his hat, suggest additional eroticism.Charles Laughton has a delicious cameo as a "Piccadilly Club" patron more interested in his food than the dancers.The film is not without its sour notes, however; for example, some characterizations/relationships are poorly defined; and, the ending could have been better.
The barrier that Shosho has to overcome is that of her working-class origin rather than her foreign face: given the plot as written, she could equally well be a little Cockney ballet dancer (like Jessie Matthews, busy starring at that time in "This Year of Grace") picked out of the gutter by a wealthy patron as a speciality act to put the established performers' noses out of joint.On reflection I think I'd revise my original vote downwards to 6/10; worth watching out of curiosity if it turns up, but not worth seeking out.
The scene in the West End bar where the white night club owner takes ShoSho is key to the whole film IMHO.
******** Anna May. The nominal star of "Piccadilly" is Gilda Gray, but the real star of the film is Anna May Wong.
To start with, it has a starring role for Anna May Wong and a supporting role for King Hou Chang that doesn't show them in horribly stereotypical ways, as many other films from this period do.
There is a scene in a blue collar pub where a white woman comes in off the street and begins dancing with a black man, and he's then kicked out, but here we feel compassion for him, and Dupont's hand in juxtaposing it with the racial dynamic of the main characters.The film plods along at times and you have to be patient with it.
Beautifully shot movie,especially the tinted scenes, which really captivated me.Most silent movies are grainy,this print is very crisp,clear and has been wonderfully restored.I loved the streams of gay guys in the club at the start,and the edge that the party crowd had even back then.Very hep.The style was way better than any 30's movies I have seen.Jameson Thomas was very hot in this,manly he oozed sex appeal in my opinion.Also Mabel,reminded me of a young Shirley Maclaine,only sexier.Anna May Wong was wonderful as usual,its just too bad,she wasn't treated as the American she was,instead of the stereotypical Chinese,just off the boat roles she usually got.I will see this again as it was one of the best silents I have ever seen..
"Piccadilly" features some Hitchcockian touches, and I was taken aback by the talent and allure of Anna May Wong as "Sho Sho"...Hollywood has always loved the curvaceous blonde, from Harlow to Monroe.
Yes, they were lovely creatures, but Ms. Wong, without the prejudice, without World War II (doesn't matter if she was Chinese, she was perceived only as an oriental 'dragon lady'), had the beauty and talent to have been recognized as a true 'star' of her time..
The film stars Anna May Wong as Shosho, who at first works as a dishwasher in the club.
Anna May Wong looks beautiful and sexy in the role, wearing a costume probably not unlike Josephine Baker's at the same time.
Piccadilly is embarrassingly awkward at times, although I enjoy the explanations for that on the DVD - it was a time when British film was struggling to remove itself from stuffy drawing room culture and find a place in the jazz age.Anna Mae Wong is the star of this shrilly-acted and dated film.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
This film is Anna May Wong's triumph, but it's worth looking at for the qualities and themes that interested Arnold Bennett.
I would not be surprised if the character of Shosho was not Chinese in the original script but was adapted to suit Anna May Wong.
Valentine too is shown as someone who has worked for his success- the first half hour of the film places him in the club he has "made"; he first encounters Shosho after a complaint from Charles Laughton as the customer from hell which he deals with ruthlessly by firing Shosho from the scullery.
The direction is well-done with skilled and delicate touches of characterisation and placing and the camera-work is good with virtuoso flourishes on the dance floor and the film ends with another touch of Bennett- sandwich-men carrying placards for a show called "Life Goes On" past a newspaper with details of Shosho's and Jim's deaths..
Too bad Anna had no idea how to dance and no one bothered to show her how!By the way, a there are a few things to look for are in the film.
SOME SPOILERS AHEAD Entertaining claptrap about the almost completely soulless denizens of a West End nitery, from the overdressed star attraction (Gilda Gray) to the calculating Oriental scullery maid (Anna May Wong) who replaces her onstage and backstage, winning the affections of the duplicitous owner-manager (Jameson Thomas) and living (and dying) to regret it.
A. Dupont, and exquisitely photographed by Werner Brandes, Piccadillly was British International Pictures "most expensive and prestigious production at the time." Featured performers include Thomas Jameson as Valentine the amoral boss, Gilda Gray as his faded star, Cyril Ritchard as her fawning partner and Anna May Wong in a dazzling role as the drudge turned star who saves the Piccadilly Club.
I don't know who the clothing designer was but Anna May Wong looked simply fabulous as the sinuous Oriental dancer, Shosho.
Art direction by Alfred Junge has a very decadent 20s Art Nouveau look and the photography by Werner Brandes captures the high society of London's West End ("This Year of Grace" is playing) to the seedy cabaret life of "my Piccadilly" as Valentine says.
Even though it was filmed mostly at Elstree, it was a great success and for his next movie Dupont turned to an actual locale in London with Piccadilly.
The film was based on a novel by Arnold Bennett and the author also supplied his own scenario.Vic and Mabel (Cyril Richard and Gilda Gray), the top dance act, are the talk of the town - so say the patrons of the Piccadilly Club.
- as one diner says he started the club and he made it!!!An incident involving a dirty plate (Charles Laughton has a cameo as a disgruntled customer) leads Valentine to the scullery where he discovers Shosho (Wong).
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.
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 discovered Mabel Greenfield (Gilda Gray) and made stars out of her and her dance partner, Vic Smiles (Cyril Ritchard).
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.
110 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Nightclub owner (Jameson Thomas) splits up a successful dance duo (Gilda Gray and Cyril Ritchard) when he falls for the girl himself.