Piccadilly

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Synopsis

"One of the pinnacles of British silent cinema, Piccadilly is a sumptuous showbiz melodrama seething with sexual and racial tension. The Chinese-American screen goddess Anna May Wong stars as Shosho, a scullery maid in a fashionable London nightclub whose sensuous tabletop dance catches the eye of suave club owner Valentine Wilmot. She rises to become the toast of London and the object of his erotic obsession - to the bitter jealousy of Mabel, his former lover and star dancer (played by Ziegfeld Follies star Gilda Gray). Piccadilly has now been beautifully restored by the BFI National Film & Television Archive, complete with amber and blue tinting copied from an original 1929 silent release print. The BFI also commissioned a new score from Neil Brand, internationally acclaimed as a master of improvised silent film accompaniment.

Movie info:

Release:

1929

Running Time:

109 min

Certificate:

Contains mild violence

Availability:

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Cast:

Director:

Ewald André Dupont

Reviews & comments (3)

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Edward Hutchings
Where East End girls meet West End boys…
07 December 2011
A glorious silent-era melodrama set mainly in London’s West End in the late 1920s but which takes detours to the slums of Limehouse and to the showbiz world’s less glamorous nooks and crannies. Made on the cusp of the sound era (and a ‘talkie’ prologue exists as an extra on the BFI’s recent DVD), the film has a vibrant, jazz-age energy to it that takes its cue from the dance scenes on the floor of Valentine Wilmot’s (Jameson Thomas) Piccadilly Club – where Charles Laughton has an amusing cameo as a disgruntled diner. Anna May Wong gives an empowering performance as the dancer Shosho and her first appearance, dancing on the sideboard in the club’s scullery, feels as luminous and provocative today as it surely must have in the late 1920s. For us, the film is also a thrilling imagining (almost entirely studio-shot, of course) of a long-gone city.
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Barnes Green
Picadilly
04 December 2009
A film showing the tensions of the rich versus poor division and racial tension set in the London of 80 years ago in full art decorovision. Marvellous! I love silent films because they are so artistic, but most of the surviving representations are impossible to watch because of poor quality. Not so this one - the clarity is superb. This is a thriller, if such an entity is possible from the era, and the most enjoyable silent film I have watched since King Vidor's The Crowd. Unfortunately, I am a grumpy old mand and there are 2 very minor criticisms|: 1. The use throughout the captions of 'till for until, instead of the correct 'til 2. During the trial, the constatn reference to the pistol as a revolver when in fact it was an automatic. joeharris1306@live.co.uk
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Robert Young
Anna May Wong
30 November 2009
Set in a Piccadilly nightclub in the 20’s the film depicts Anna May Wong as a dishwasher who becomes the clubs star attraction. One of the last silent movies that was released before talking pictures really took off. Wonderful music and costume. A compelling drama.
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