Piccadilly

Piccadilly is a 1929 British silent film directed by E.A. Dupont, set around a London nightclub whose fortunes decline until its owner hires a Chinese dishwasher, Shosho, as a replacement dancer, whose rise to stardom provokes jealousy that ends in her murder and a trial. The British Film Institute has ranked it alongside the best work of the period's Anthony Asquith or Alfred Hitchcock and described it as a film noir before the term existed, calling it one of the true greats of British silent cinema. The BFI has also singled out Anna May Wong's performance as Shosho as arguably the best use of her talents in her career, though British censors cut a kiss between Wong and her white co-star to satisfy American distributors, a compromise that underlines how directly the film engaged with racial attitudes of its era.