Cocaine (film)

Cocaine is a 1922 British crime film directed by Graham Cutts and starring Hilda Bayley, Flora Le Breton, Ward McAllister and Cyril Raymond. A melodrama – it depicts the distribution of cocaine by gangsters through a series of London nightclubs and the revenge sought by a man after the death of his daughter.

Because of its depiction of drug use, it was the most controversial British film of the 1920s.^[1] It was feared by the authorities that it might encourage the spread of narcotics.^[2] However, as the film had a clear message about the dangers of using drugs it was eventually passed by the censors in June 1922 and released in some cinemas under the alternative title While London Sleeps.^[3]

The Chinese gangster Min Fu was reportedly based on a real-life criminal Brilliant Chang.^[4]

Cast

• Hilda Bayley – Jenny
• Flora Le Breton – Madge Webster
• Ward McAllister – Min Fu
• Cyril Raymond – Stanley
• Tony Fraser – Loki
• Teddy Arundell – Montagu Webster

References

1. ^ Sweet p.48
2. ^ Sweet p.50
3. ^ Robertson p.25
4. ^ Sweet p.48

Bibliography

• Robertson, James Crighton. The hidden cinema: British film censorship in action, 1913–1975. Routledge, 1993.
• Sweet, Matthew. Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British Cinema. Faber and Faber, 2005.

External links

• Cocaine (film) at the Internet Movie Database