Funny how a film on the tail end of the silent era can feel somewhat timely, and I had no way of knowing from the description. In the first act, London night club dancer Vic (Cyril Ritchard) repeatedly ignores the express wish of dance partner Mabel (Gilda Gray) that he not kiss her arms and back, especially as they leave the stage. He labors under the apparent delusion that she secretly likes him—and insists she'd be nothing without him. Boss Valentine Wilmot (Jameson Thomas) notices and fires him before she even lodges a complaint. We never hear from Vic again. That said, it isn't strictly virtuous of Wilmot: He has his own designs on Mabel. But he's enough of a gentleman that she falls for him.
The real conflict begins when, alas, the Piccadilly Club's business suffers in Vic's wake. Looking for innovation, Wilmot recalls a dishwasher, Shosho (Anna May Wong), whom he caught dancing on the clock. He rehires her as a dancer, making it essentially the Shosho Show, if you will. It's not clear whether Mabel envies her first for her popularity with the crowds or for her popularity with Wilmot in another capacity, but as the tension heats up...well, I won't spoil it like the Netflix jacket does. Let's just say that silent films don't favor happy endings between whites and Asians.
It's pretty unusual for a silent to be primarily in a musical setting. With two extensive dance sequences, contemporary audiences would have to hope that the theater band did extra well. We DVD renters are treated to an excellent score to enhance the story even outside those scenes. An included monologue by the modern composer confesses that some of it is modeled after later jazz to reflect the proto-noir aspects of the film; I for one don't mind.
The cinematography is impressive for the time. Adding to it is a tinting scheme: blue for outdoors (always night), golden for indoors, and straight B&W for the occasional flashback. The restorers clearly updated the intertitles as well, with a neat yellow font on a uniquely stylized background. I think it helped keep my eyes peeled, in case you usually find silents dull.
On the subject of color, yes, Shosho's Chinese identity matters. You might imagine how her stage performance looks. To be fair, how often do even recent movies in the West cast actors of East Asian descent without including something to call attention to it, like martial arts? I have declined to add my "politically incorrect" tag, because none of the non-White characters come across as caricatures to me; I get the impression that the makers have more respect for them than for the bigots. (Asians are not the only minorities herein: A Black man gets kicked out of another club for dancing with a White woman. This is not made to look like the right move on the owner's part.)
This is not to say that Shosho remains utterly innocent. In keeping with the aforementioned noirish feel, nobody does. Like in most silents, things never get very complicated, but I like the developments all the same. Only in a late courtroom scene, as the composer noted (heh), does the film lose a little momentum.
The DVD also includes a designated prologue from the time—curiously a short talkie. It depicts Wilmot some time after the events of the story, about to tell someone what happened. I can't recommend it, partly because it's needlessly slow. Perhaps the makers hadn't done a talkie before and didn't know how to pace it. I also can't recommend watching the footage of a modern Asian society panel, if only because the mike feedback makes it hard to understand.
What I do recommend, of course, is Piccadilly itself. It's an engaging, sometimes steamy affair whose antiquated setting should not offend our sensibilities.
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