Drifting

(Tod Browning, US 1923, 82 min., 35mm)

Silent Tuesdays | Rochester Premiere of a Restoration. Drifting was Tod Browning’s (Dracula, Freaks) last silent film at Universal. Based on a stage play written in 1910 by Daisy Andrews and John Colton, the story follows Cassie Cook (Priscilla Dean), an American heavily involved in the Chinese opium trade who is engaged in an uneasy alliance with her rival, Jules Repin (Wallace Beery). Never a lost film, but long unavailable, Drifting has been reconstructed by the Moving Image Department at the George Eastman Museum thanks to the cooperation of MaNDA (Hungarian National Digital Archive and Film Institute), Gosfilmofond of Russia, and the National Film Preservation Foundation. Live piano by Philip C. Carli. Special support provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.