The latest release from the BFI is the long-awaited Piccadilly, a film made in 1929 by an international team, combining British and American actors, with German direction, design and photography, in a British production.

The result is this stunning film, a prototype film noir, with two femme fatales; Shosho (Anna May Wong), the young, beautiful Chinese girl washing dishes at the nightclub where Mabel (Gilda Gray) is the ageing star turn. The club's boss, Valentine (Jameson Thomas), also Mabel's lover, discovers Shosho, sets her dancing in the club, where she is an immediate sensation, and falls for her.

The story is not the most original, but has fine observation and some killer lines; but the film is a must-see for its visuals. German expressionist flavourings run throughout, featuring the designs of Alfred Junge (best known for his work with Powell and Pressburger in the 40's) , creating a look that would dominate Hollywood films in the forties and fifties...in 1929.

The acting is stunning; Thomas is a seedier Ronald Colman, trapped between the two women who want him; Gilda Gray, goes from awful prima donna to a sympathetic, tragic figure with great conviction, and Anna May Wong is breathtaking, utterly convincing both in the nightclub and in Limehouse, growing from timid girl to full-fledged sexual predator! You simply cannot take your eyes off her: even in the plain clothes she wears at the beginning, she has a cool, almost 1960's quality. The German director, E.A.Dupont, somehow manages to combine all these disparate acting styles, moments of high drama and touches of comedy, with deft little bits of business informing us about the people behind their public masks...and about the layered nature of London society, the sequences in the old East End particularly being a fascinating look at the sexual and racial politics of the time.

The newly-restored print, is stunning, rarely showing its age, more often showing the beautiful cinematography by Werner Brandes, ex-UFA - the sequence where Shosho debuts in the club being one of the most beautiful I have ever seen on film - although the tinting and toning seems a bit bold to my eyes, so you may want to turn the colour down on your tv.

The extras on the DVD include text biographies of Wong and Dupont, a howlingly bad sound prologue for the film, but most importantly a briefing by Neil Brand about his thinking for his new score, but which also incidentally acts as an illuminating commentary and analysis on the film itself . The film's background is a jazz club of sorts, and Neil's score is a jazz-based one, but he has (thankfully) resisted the temptation of a charleston-fest, and gone for a style that actually fits the style of the film, the emotions at work; restrained, cool, languid, but with an underlying tension. It works brilliantly.

You can hire Piccadilly from 20th Century Flicks, buy direct from the BFI or from your usual High St shop.