Revisiting Riceyman

Sunday, June 21st., Chiltern Court, London.

Midsummer's day. Felt a bit 'down' this morning and went out to try to cheer myself up. Worked!

Riceyman Steps

Coming down from the Pentonville region into Clerkenwell I was reflecting in the back-parlour of my mind on 'convention' and 'revolt' in literature. Convention was on the slopes. He that knoweth not Percy Circus (distant view of the romantic towers of St Pancras) should know it. It is a hundred times more conventional than Piccadilly Circus. Also Great Percy Street should be known. Also the Norman arches of Baker Street (W.C.1 not W.1). Also Helena Street, with its antique woodwork all painted verdant green and its ruined chapel. Also Lloyd Square, the most withdrawn square in London. Also Riceymen Steps, formerly Plum Pudding Steps, where was performed a feat of transport surpassing anything ever done in that line in USA, namely the moving of an entire bookseller's shop with all its books and dust from a south coast port to the foot of the Steps. So I descended to King's Cross Road and the new factories and warehouses. It is the latter which represent Revolt. The latest industrial perpendicular style of architecture contrasts uncompromisingly with the conventional blocks of dark "dwellings" which it hems in.

The object of my excursion was to visit and ransack the book-barrows. With a vengeance do they represent Convention. I have known them for over forty years, and instead of advancing they have receded. To begin with, the majority of them were shut-up and sheeted down in their black tarpaulins. This at four o'clock on Saturday afternoon! Influence no doubt of the sinister weekend habit invented by the book-reading classes! And those that were still "open" might be divided into two classes: barrows stocked with too-excited literature, arcane publications and works by obscure authors; barrows heaped pell-mell with books in a disorder so acute that you could not possibly examine more than ten percent of them without employing a housebreaking and demolition firm. I did, in fact, detect one or two pleasing items but to prove the sincerity of my remarks to the barrow-man I refused to buy any of them - he didn't care! The book-barrow trade ought to look to itself, and if I do my duty I shall write to the Secretary of the National Union of associations of Book-barrow Dealers. Half an hour in Farringdon Road has served to raise my opinion of shop-based booksellers!

I have had the opportunity to see the film "Piccadilly", for which I wrote the screenplay last year, and was pleased with it. Dupont has done an excellent job in bringing the story to life on the screen and the advertising poster is superb. The quality of the acting was, I thought, good. There was considerable use of close-up shots of the actors' faces and they were generally successful in conveying their emotions with subtle changes of expression. This surprised me. A surprisingly large amount of the dialogue is discoverable by lip-reading the actors. Dupont seems to have managed to locate and use a large number of characterful extras which added to the authenticity of the film, as did the use of scenes shot in the streets of London.  The contrast between the privileged world of the wealthy and that of the working-classes was brought out excellently: the audience in the Piccadilly Club seemed bland, homogeneous and uninteresting in comparison with the denizens of the Limehouse public house who were diverse, colourful and full of life, with a barely veiled edge of violence and sexuality. Anna May Wong was excellent in the role of Shosho, though her Chinese dance didn't seem likely to have excited male appetites to the extent implied by the story-line. Jameson Thomas as Valentine Wilmot was suitably sinister. I was pleased that all the characters I created retained their flaws in transition from paper to the silver screen. The film is no great work of art, but it is decidedly watchable.