Piccadilly

Anna May Wong's finest hour — and one of the great performances of the late silent era. In a glamorous London dance club, the headliner is losing her audience. Down in the kitchen, Shosho (Wong), a scullery worker, is discovered dancing on the tables, and the club owner puts her on stage, where she becomes a sensation. The romantic triangle that develops between Shosho, the club owner, and the deposed headliner drives toward a tragic conclusion that is both dramatically inevitable and deeply unfair — to the character, and to Wong herself, who was never allowed by Hollywood to get the man. Director E.A. Dupont (of Variety fame) shoots the nightclub sequences with dazzling visual flair, and Wong — sensual, magnetic, and heartbreaking — proves once and for all that she was one of the great screen presences of her generation.