DRIFTING is a somewhat disappointing re-discovery, lovingly preserved and restored in 4k by the George Eastman House. It is a typical Tod Browning story and the final one he made with Priscilla Dean. She plays an opium dealer in Shanghai who is trying to go straight first determining to help an ailing prostitute and ultimately assisting an undercover agent stop the opium trade. She goes back and forth in her feelings along the way. Quite frankly, I'm a Browning fan and I had forgotten this film had existed and would not have lost any sleep over if it never turned up on home video. It looks great - for a film that is nearly 100 years old, some of the faces and scenery pop off the screen. The most satisfying is Anna May Wong as a Chinese daughter of the opium drug lord. She gives a terrific, if one-note, performance as an innocent young woman who is enamored by the undercover agent. She gets all the sympathy you could ask for out of this limited role and her face is wonderfully emotive. The fact that she does not seem to be attracted to any of her fellow countrymen and only loves the new white guy in town plays into the racism of that era, as would be expected for this 1923 film. Priscilla Dean is good as the lead and has a spirit that shows you why audiences in the late teens and early twenties went to see her. Her role is not great, though, and the way the story plays out, you really wish Anna May Wong would get the man instead of Dean. Edna Tichenor, who played the female vampire in LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT plays the opium-addicted prostitute and it's easy to see that Tod Browning viewed her as a vamp with her over-the-top make-up in this. Her subsequent roles for him in MIDNIGHT and as the spider-girl in THE SHOW in 1927 seem to indicate she was his go-to actress for "unclean" women.
Even for a film made in 1923, Tod Browning really needs to be called out for his sick audacity to kill a horse for an on-screen effect. In the battle during the climax, we see a rider on a horse running up steep wooden stairs and once the horse reaches the top, the stairs collapse completely and the horse and rider plummet to what looks to be at least 30 feet below. I couldn't believe it when I saw it and you feel so bad the horse had to die this way. In his audio commentary for the film, Anthony Slide states he hopes the rider got hurt as well. Browning, too was having an affair with an underage Wong when the film was being produced that helped cause his wife to leave him. So, these facts included we get a glimpse of the dirty side of Hollywood, both on-screen and off with this film.
It's hard to figure out what the title refers to. DRIFTING is such a generic title, the film easily could have been called "Fighting" or "Leaving" just as easily. Browning's other films of the period have titles that make perfect sense such as THE UNHOLY THREE and OUTSIDE THE LAW, that I just find this little fact perplexing. As a whole, it is an okay film for silent film fans. It has a solid performance from Wallace Beery as a co-smuggler to Dean's character as well. The restoration does this film the most justice and is the real star today. DRIFTING probably best holds up as an example of the fruitful partnership that Tod Browning and Priscilla Dean had for 5 years before his brief downfall from drinking in 1923 ended it. Her star quickly faded thereafter and today, we remember this partnership more as a footnote to Browning's partnership with Lon Chaney from 1925-29.
Even for a film made in 1923, Tod Browning really needs to be called out for his sick audacity to kill a horse for an on-screen effect. In the battle during the climax, we see a rider on a horse running up steep wooden stairs and once the horse reaches the top, the stairs collapse completely and the horse and rider plummet to what looks to be at least 30 feet below. I couldn't believe it when I saw it and you feel so bad the horse had to die this way. In his audio commentary for the film, Anthony Slide states he hopes the rider got hurt as well. Browning, too was having an affair with an underage Wong when the film was being produced that helped cause his wife to leave him. So, these facts included we get a glimpse of the dirty side of Hollywood, both on-screen and off with this film.
It's hard to figure out what the title refers to. DRIFTING is such a generic title, the film easily could have been called "Fighting" or "Leaving" just as easily. Browning's other films of the period have titles that make perfect sense such as THE UNHOLY THREE and OUTSIDE THE LAW, that I just find this little fact perplexing. As a whole, it is an okay film for silent film fans. It has a solid performance from Wallace Beery as a co-smuggler to Dean's character as well. The restoration does this film the most justice and is the real star today. DRIFTING probably best holds up as an example of the fruitful partnership that Tod Browning and Priscilla Dean had for 5 years before his brief downfall from drinking in 1923 ended it. Her star quickly faded thereafter and today, we remember this partnership more as a footnote to Browning's partnership with Lon Chaney from 1925-29.