The origin of the word “glamour” lies in casting spells. Film casts a spell over the viewer, in the flickering images cast by light passing through celluloid. In the old days, cellulose nitrate, a highly flammable substance, was used as the base for most film stock. Cellulose acetate, commonly known as safety stock, was also in use. One layer of film consisted of an emulsion of silver salts. When light was projected through this, the concept of the silver screen was born. The days of nitrate and silver emulsion are long gone, but the films of that era can still cast a spell over the modern day viewer. ‘Piccadilly’ is one such film.

When the films of Wong’s contemporary, Louise Brooks, were being rediscovered after decades in obscurity, the director of the Cinémathèque Française in Paris declared: “There is no Garbo! There is no Dietrich! There is only Louise Brooks!” Brooks’ sleek, angular black bob and boyish figure were the epitome of the times. But added to that, she had a naturalistic acting style and a luminosity that made her stand out from the other actors in her films. The same might be said about Anna May Wong.

Wong is a revelation in ‘Piccadilly.’ Like Brooks, she dominates the scenes not just through her beauty, but also through the sheer subtlety of her acting, her mercurial changes of expression, her ability to convey both mischief, scheming and endearing innocence. But the power of Wong’s image goes beyond this. Like Brooks, she is utterly modern, but in some respects, she is even more timeless. She has the kind of figure promoted by twenty-first century fashion magazines, something that is less true of the pear-shaped Louise. Wong could easily be a modern day model. At one point in the film, she’s dressed in a striped top, a short skirt, and a beret. She could have walked out of almost any decade between the twenties and the twenty-first century. In ‘Piccadilly,’ Wong seems to transcend time, making her the perfect screen goddess.

Anna May Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong on January 5th 1905 in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Her father was a laundryman. A third generation Chinese-American, Anna May had ambitions, and would appear in her first starring role in ‘The Toll of The Sea’ at the age of 17. But she lived in a country where race laws forbade interracial relationships between Chinese and Caucasians. In Hollywood, this prejudice played out with limited, stereotyped roles for Chinese actresses, while white actors donned “yellow” make up in order to circumvent the race rules.

When Douglas Fairbanks Snr saw Wong onscreen, he hired her to play the role of a slave in ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ (1924). The limitations of Hollywood eventually sent Wong to Europe where a more tolerant climate offered better opportunities. She would also later star on the London stage with the young Laurence Olivier.

‘Piccadilly’ was made in London. The ambition of British International Pictures was to lift native cinema out of the doldrums. In a market which had been dominated commercially by the Americans, it was important to prove that home-grown films could compete with the best of Hollywood. But to achieve this, BIP hired a German director, a German cinematographer, a German Art Director, Anna May Wong, and Ziegfeld Follies star, Gilda Gray.

Germany was the artistic centre of European film-making, and Berlin was its centre. Many of the best European directors, including future Hollywood directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, had spent time there. Post war Germany had given birth to the nightmarish world of expressionist film-making, from ‘The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari’ to ‘Nosferatu,’ and the science-fiction masterpiece, ‘Metropolis.’ Although expressionism would begin to pass away by the mid-twenties, its influence reverberated within the genres of horror and film noir.

‘Piccadilly’ is a film that uses expressionist cinematography and lighting. The German film that it most resembles, though, is ‘Pandora’s Box,’ made in 1928, and starring Louise Brooks. But there are also parallels with Hitchcock’s ‘The Lodger,’ which was made at the same time as ‘Piccadilly.’ Both films use the backdrop of a neon-lit London, and their opening scenes focus on these flashing signs.

The director of ‘Piccadilly’ was E.A. Dupont. Writing in ‘Das Tage-Buch’ in 1922, Stefan Grossmann noted (as reported by Klaus Kreimeier in ‘The Ufa Story: A History of Germany’s Greatest Film Company’):

“When I saw E.A. Dupont editing the news seven or eight years ago at Ullstein, curious about everything going on in the world and ready at a moment’s notice to translate current events into large or small type, I never would have thought that this quick-thinking newspaperman would become one of the world’s most able film directors.”

Dupont’s great cinematic success was ‘Variety’ (1925). He later left for Hollywood, like so many others, but failed to make it there and returned to Europe. ‘Piccadilly’ was one of the films he made in England. He’d made ‘Moulin Rouge’ the previous year, and earned a reputation for being difficult due to his temperamental nature and his preference for working after midnight, which inevitably drove up costs. ‘Moulin Rouge’ came in over budget but was critically well received.

‘Piccadilly’ is a film that probably would never have been made in silent Hollywood. The plot revolves around the London nightclub of the title. This is a glamorous world, where the smart set come in their droves, and the star attraction is a pair of dancers: Vic (Cyril Ritchard) and Mabel (Gilda Gray). The owner of the club, Valentine Wilmot (Jameson Thomas), is the man who made Mabel, and when he catches Vic getting a little too friendly in public, he sacks him. Vic isn’t the only one to get his marching orders, however. During the couple’s dance routine, a diner causes a disturbance after discovering his plate is dirty. Wilmot traces the source of this complaint to a young Chinese girl in the scullery, who is more interested in dancing on the table tops than getting on with her work. This casual but sensual dance of Wong’s is offset by the ladders in her stockings and her dowdy dishwashing outfit. Nevertheless, she is luminous and has the entire crew of dishwashers entranced. Later, she meets Wilmot on her way out the club. She reveals that she had gone looking for her mascot, a nodding Buddha figurine. Soon, the two of them disappear upstairs.

Faced with declining attendance at the club following the sacking of Vic, Wilmot has to come up with a new attraction. The young Chinese dishwasher, Shosho, will be that attraction. Having seen her dance, Wilmot arranges to buy her the costume of her choice. Jim (King Ho-Chang), a young man and fellow member of Limehouse’s Chinese community, looks on. He’s clearly in love with Shosho and takes an immediate dislike to the suave Wilmot, exhibiting a delightful disdain. Shosho arranges for Jim to play the music at her performance.

Mabel, of course, is less than pleased when she hears about the new attraction. She sees Shosho as a competitor in more ways than one. Shosho’s debut is a spectacular success. There’s a wonderful scene the morning after, when Jim wakes her up to give her the newspaper. At this point in the film, she’s still essentially an innocent young girl, though we’ve already seen evidence of her ambition. The newspaper carries a glowing review. Wong reads this review in the spirit of mischievous delight, lingering over sections, savouring her triumph. Wong achieves this wonderfully through the expressiveness of her face and hand movements. She casts little looks to Jim, who stands brimming with pride at her success. Then, in a beautifully touching moment, she covers his head with the newspaper, and lifts it up just enough to kiss him. We don’t see the kiss, but the blissful look on Jim’s face says it all. Sadly, for him, it’s all downhill from here on.

Wilmot becomes the subject of Shosho’s interest and ambitions. As Jim discovers, his nodding Buddha gift to her has taken up residence on Wilmot’s desk. Shosho has discovered her sexual power over men and is exercising it with a mixture of scheming ambition, fun, and the basic determination to have a better life. She bears strong comparison with Louise Brooks’ character, ‘Lulu’ who also doesn’t understand the power and possible consequences of her allure. Both films very much represent a male perspective on female sexuality.

Shosho and Mabel are now in direct competition for Wilmot. Jim is increasingly shut out of Shosho’s world, quite literally when Shosho pushes the door closed on him after she’s got her contract with Wilmot.

Of course, just as in ‘Pandora’s Box,’ the whole thing is heading towards tragedy: murder and a courtroom scene. The murder is Shosho’s, and the question is who did it. At first it seems clear, but then the plot twists. Before her death, Shosho has brought Wilmot back to her flat. But he’s not the only visitor that night. In her final scenes, Wong is ravishingly dressed. During a struggle, her hair is loosened. Throughout the film, Wong’s hair resembles Louise Brooks’ sleek black fringed bob. But, in reality, the bob is an illusion. We already know she has long hair because we’ve seen it pinned up. But the vampish bob look, accentuated by the shorter front, is dispelled in her final moments. And it’s here that she is at her most modern looking. It’s this timeless quality of her appearance that makes her all the more real. The film ends on the note that life goes on. But for the actors and crew in this film, life is over. They are nothing more than celluloid ghosts.

One of the themes of ‘Piccadilly’ is race. There’s a wonderful scene, set in a Limehouse bar, that begins with a long panning shot of the bar itself, where drinks are being served and glasses collected. Hazy visual distortions pulsate throughout the scene. The restored film has been given a marvellous jazz and swing soundtrack by modern composer, Neil Brand, and the instruments are perfectly in rhythm with this scene. The poor of the East End are having their own dance. Shosho and Wilmot look on. A white woman comes into what is a predominantly white establishment. But she chooses to dance with a black man. The two are interrupted by the proprietor who sends the black man away, and asks the white woman, “Are you blind, or wot?”

The woman is dejected, not from being told off, but from having her dance ended. She’s subjected to a tongue lashing, before the Cockney in her finally erupts and she tears strips off those around her. Although we don’t hear or even see intertitles of her speech, her tone is all too clear. She’ll dance with who she likes. Shosho and Wilmot leave the pub soon after this.

‘Piccadilly’ has a number of such entertaining minor characterisations, and Charles Laughton, in an early film role, appears briefly as the disgruntled diner whose initial complaint about the dirty plate leads to Wilmot’s discovery of Shosho dancing in the scullery.

Dupont’s film is a breathtaking mix of German expressionism and noirish vision, jazz-age London, and the clash between cultures, whether Chinese and English, poor and rich, or East End versus West End. But there are other cultural references.

There’s a tense moment towards the end of the film, when Anna May Wong raises her arm to protect herself. Dark lace is draped from her arm and the camera shoots her face in close up through the fabric. This image is comparable with the photography of the Studio Manassé in Vienna, where a husband and wife team took glamorous and often surreal pictures of beautiful women, some of them actresses. They also produced studio portraits of film stars for postcards. Anna May Wong was one of their subjects. The studio was active from the twenties through to the thirties and much of their work can be found in Monika Faber’s book, Divas and Goddesses: Photographic Fantasies from Vienna between the Wars. Perhaps Dupont, his art director Alfred Junge, or cinematographer Werner Brandes, were aware of the Manassés work.

Dupont would return to Germany, only to leave again in the thirties. He was Jewish and a max exodus was underway in the German film industry. Two weeks after Josef Goebbels’ appointment to the Propaganda Ministry in 1933, the purge of Jewish actors, directors, producers, writers and technicians began. Dupont ended up in Hollywood again, but failed to match the success he’d found in Europe and his career eventually petered out. Art director, Alfred Junge, would stay on in Britain, later working with Powell and Pressburger. As for the glorious Anna May Wong, her career continued into the sound era, and she worked in China for a time. Much later, in the US, she had her own television series. In the late fifties she had a brief cinematic revival, but ill health forced her to turn down a film role in 1961, and she died at her home in Santa Monica in February of that year at the age of 56.

‘Metropolis,’ ‘Pandora’s Box,’ ‘Piccadilly’: these are films that transcend pure entertainment. They have iconic status because they come closest to the core of what cinema is about: a waking dream projected onto a screen, with stars and images that have survived their eras, ascending to a kind of glamorous immortality. Of course this immortality depends on the successful preservation of such films. It’s been estimated that by the turn of the century there, all cellulose nitrate film stock was in a process of decay. While the film archives do their best, thousands upon thousands of films are lying in archives around the world, often uncatalogued. There simply isn’t the money or the resources to save them all. But thanks to the BFI, we can at least enjoy a beautifully restored and tinted ‘Piccadilly,’ with a brilliantly composed and executed jazz score. The Anna May Wong of ‘Piccadilly’ has been resurrected. As long as it’s preserved, film is the ultimate present tense medium, where the long dead film goddess is still alive, still young, and still enticing.

Kara Kellar Bell is a film and media graduate from the West of Scotland, with a passion for European novels, French films, silent cinema, and Brazilian music (everything from Daniela Mercury and other pop stars through to bossa nova). As a writer, she likes to have room to move around creatively, so she’s not located in one genre. She writes realism and also stories of a more fantastic nature, usually grounded to some extent in the real world. She also takes delight in writing across the sexual spectrum, and as a bisexual, considers it important to remind people that things are not always black and white, either/or, in sexuality or in gender. For a selection of Kara’s writing on the Showcase section of this site, click here

© 2004 Laura Hird All rights reserved.