Piccadilly (1929) – 2/5

Too little at the beginning, too much for the ending

„Piccadilly“ is a live action silent film from 1929, so it will be only slightly over five years for this one to have its 100th anniversary, perhaps less if it takes you a little longer to get here and read this review of mine. I read on several occasions that the film runs for minimally over 1.5 hours, but it seems as if there is also a version out there that comes fairly close to the two-hour mark. If this has to do with less frames per second then or indeed additional scene, I am not sure. This is a black-and-white film at its core, but could very well be that you find some color in whatever version you are watching. For me this was actually one of the more interesting aspects to this film. I have seen many really old silent films, but rarely have I come across such a clean structure with regard to color. All the scenes outside are depicted in a rather cold shade of blue (after all, blue is NOT the warmest color, at least here) while the scenes inside are depicted in a relatively warm shade of yellow. You could maybe see the yellow as something indicating poison too, but I think there is no intention from the filmmakers to do so. Red would not have worked really either because it always had given a vibe of violence and blood, so yellow was an okay choice. I also don’t really think that it was selected as a connection to the central actress‘ origins, but even if this had been the case, I would not call it a racist film or anything. As for the blue and yellow, there was even one scene when a character enters a room and comes from the outside and there it was a fluent transition from blue to yellow. I liked it quite a bit, but difficult to count it as an argument if we evaluate the original version of the film back then. So, this is never really an actual black-and-white film. Well, in a way it is towards the end when we have a flashback scene from one character as he tells us his version of how things happened in the past. Felt fairly modern too then this choice of style and colors, but oh well.

If we look at the basics here, we will see that the director was Ewald André Dupont and he was in his 30s when he made this film, so not old at all. Like „Varieté“, this film we have here is among his most known releases. He was also a prolific writer, but this time he only directed. The writer was Arnold Bennett, who was almost 15 years older than Dupont, but they both reached the same age. Bennett was also fairly prolific, but not as much as Dupont and „Piccadilly“ is definitely among his most known works. You don’t really see it too often that films from this era win awards back then already, but this one here being selected by the National Board of Review as one of the best films of the year is quite an honor. I wish I could agree with this statement. If I did, then I would also say it was very weak year for movies. I doubt that. There were pretty much three actors/characters at the center of this all. First credit went to Gilda Gray which surprises me a bit because she was not the core of the story and also she was not a big star I think. Maybe it is for alphabetical reasons. She only made two more films after this one. Anna May Wong is perhaps the most memorable aspect. I read people considered her the first Asian star in Hollywood. Well, this is a British film, but I can see where those statements are coming from. She has great screen presence here and I can see why she kept appearing in other films for years, no decades to come. The only reason why I would not say she was the big (co-)lead here is probably because it takes a little while until she even enters the picture. And finally, Jameson Thomas does not only have a great name, but he was the character at the center of the story and also the link between the two women. It’s a pity he died a decade later already at a not old age at all because otherwise I am sure his career would have gone on for much longer. He made a solid transition from silent films to sound pictures.

Let me say a few words now what I mean by the title of my review here: In the early stages (or actually far beyond that), the film here and there more felt like a documentary depicting dance scenes mostly and just life how it happens, but there is not focus on the characters to a sufficient extent in terms of quantity, but especially quality. I mean this is okay too, but then they perhaps should have really gone and turned this into a full-on documentary. In terms of the action in the first 60 minutes, maybe 70 minutes even, this could have been a half-hour film, maybe 20 minutes even. It dragged quite a bit. And towards the end then, it felt as if they were so desperate to make up for all this slowness form earlies that it became way too much and did not feel realistic anymore. The killing of the Asian character was already so out of nowhere in what could have been a moment of jealousy or a moment of self-defense. But then the film turns into a courtroom drama out of nowhere. The judge was kinda funny there with his mannerisms, even if he was overacting too. But there one dramatic moment really followed the next and I am not sure at all why the Asian guy in the end confessed to killing the Asian woman. Did he really? Before that we are in the room and we see that the gun is involved between the two women and also the sharp object from the wall. Which made me think that the Asian guy was lying right before dying. Oh yes, he was dying towards the end apparently. Suicide completely out of nowhere. This also did not feel realistic. It was just very confusing and all over the place in the end and it felt as if Bennett wanted the film to stay in people’s minds after the screening no matter what, but it felt for all the wrong reasons there. Zero subtlety and so much forced drama. Unreal. And disappointing. Already, the idea that we do not see immediately in the fight sequence what happens in the end was not the best choice, even if we are informed directly afterwards through newspapers. This film would have needed so much more subtlety in the final half hour.

On a more positive note, I would say that the exact ending, which was more of an epilogue, I liked then. How people read about the tragedy, but life goes on and we literally read that on the screen too and people care more about betting results than about what happened with the club dancer. Oh yeah, Piccadilly is a club here. I am one who immediately thinks of Piccadilly Circus instead when hearing the words that is the title of the film here, but then again Piccadilly Circus is not an actual circus, but a street crossing or corner and this is where the film took place. We do not really find out towards the end if the club can survive without its new star after finances looked really poor before that, before she had her breakthrough, but who knows, maybe all this drama and escalation created more headlines for the club and helped it this way for a little while. So the very ending was good and realistic, but this was almost the only thing. The opening I liked as well with how they show us the names there it was quite creative and surely ahead of its time for not even the 1930s. You see I am almost desperately trying to find positive aspects from this film here, but I just can’t collect enough to remotely consider giving the outcome here a positive recommendation. Another interesting scene was the one when we had a White woman dance briefly with a Black guy before an intervention happened. Unthinkable back then, even if I am not sure if the film was story-wise set roughly when it was made or a few years before that. The film is not really taking any sides there though, just depicting the events. This progressive it is not. Maybe a good thing.

This is all then. I saw this film last night with an organ player providing the soundtrack live and this is always a nice feature, but cannot say this in favor of the film too. So I have to give a thumbs-down and negative recommendation overall here. I suggest you skip the watch and instead go for one of the uncountable other old silent films the next time you are in the mood for a non-talkie. Should not be difficult to find one superior to this one here. Oh yeah, one final thing: It probably also hurt the film from my personal perspective that I did not find the central male character particularly likable, even if this is how they wanted him to be seen I think. If you have a different perception there, it could help perhaps with how you see the film as a whole. A romance drama you could call it, especially with more romantic involvement and jealousy revealed towards the end with the Asian guy. There are comedic moments I think, at least very subtle ones, even if almost nobody was laughing during my screening. They felt like this to me though, even if I cannot say if it was intended like this by the filmmakers. One would be when the Caucasian female talks to her man about the Asian girl being at his place the other night. The exaggeration there had some humor to it, even if said Caucasian woman was probably the last one to find it funny. That is really all now. Watch something else instead.