PICCADILLY A film by E A Dupont One of the pinnacles of British silent cinema, Piccadilly is a sumptuous showbusiness melodrama seething with sexual and racial tension. Chinese-American screen goddess Anna May Wong stars as Shosho, a scullery maid in a fashionable London nightclub whose sensuous table-top dance catches the eye of suave club owner Valentine Wilmot. With her exotic dance routines she rises to become the toast of London and the object of Wilmot s erotic obsession prompting the bitter jealously of Mabel, his former lover and star dancer (played by Ziegfeld Follies star Gilda Gray). Contemporary fears and temptations of miscegenation are played out though Wong as the subject of fatal passions. This stylish evocation of Jazz Age London, directed by German émigré E A Dupont boasts the dazzlingly fluid cinematography of Werner Brandes and atmospheric sets by Alfred Junge ranging from the opulent West End nightclub to seedy Limehouse. Beautifully restore by the bfi National Film and Television Archive, complete with blue and amber tinting, Piccadilly is accompanied by a newly commissioned dramatic score by Neil Brand, performed by some of the UK"s leading jazz players. DVD extras: Neil Brand on composing for Piccadilly, prologue from the sound version of the film, director"s biography, and May Wong biography. UK | 1929 | black and white | silent with music | 108 minutes | Ratio 1.33:1 | Region 2 DVD