NEW -- Modern Dance at: Theater X-Net
Featuring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley
Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
Charity Alert: Keep that resolution during Springtime too! Click on The Hunger Site every day.
In The Community: A Rotary Club seminar on Business Ethics (and cynicism) at Flathead Valley Community College. We went out over ITV to Libby, Montana -- about 90 miles away. Our guests were John Johnstone, CEO of D.A. Davidson & Company and Dr. Dane Scott of the University of Montana. Dr. Scott Wheeler, retired History professor from West Point was the co-presenter, along with our president Jane Karas.
Media Watch: On TCM (from their web site) -- Anna May Wong (1905-1961) in Piccadilly (1929). A British production, directed by the German filmmaker E. A. Dupont. Wong steals the show as Shosho, a scullery maid in the club who becomes the star attraction. Wong is cool, confident, manipulative, and frankly sensual - a performance that is all the more remarkable at a time when Asian women (including Wong herself) were usually stereotyped in films as evil Dragon Ladies or submissive Lotus Blossoms.
Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong (her name means "Frosted Yellow Willows") in Los Angeles, where her parents ran a laundry. Fascinated by films from an early age, she began acting at 14. A small role in Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad (1924) led to stardom, but fed up with the stereotypical "exotic Oriental" roles, Wong went to Europe in 1928, hoping for better parts. After making two films in Germany, she was cast in Piccadilly by Dupont, who had been working in Britain since 1926.
E. A. Dupont, a film critic turned screenwriter and director, had demonstrated a brilliant visual flair with the German film Variete (1925), and had been signed to a contract by Universal. But his stint in Hollywood was unsuccessful, and he returned to Europe. Like Variete, and his earlier British film, Moulin Rouge (1928), Piccadilly demonstrated Dupont's mastery of camera movement and lighting. From the opening scenes, shot in art director Alfred Junge's enormous and complex nightclub set, through noirish scenes of London streets and alleys, Dupont's direction and Werner Brandes's fluid camerawork are stunning.
From the painting by de La Gandara (in progress at the time), gown by her favorite dressmakers at the House of Worth.
La Pisanelle was a deliberately decadent fantasy co-created by Gabrielle D'Annunzio where Ida's character was smothered by rose pedals during the finale. The alternate title was Death by Perfume. It was her last major extravaganza before WWI, but she would continue staging her elaborate theatrical pieces from the 20's into the 30's.
Many thanks to Xavier Mathieu at La Gandara's Web Site
