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. It was feared by the authorities that it might encourage the spread of narcotics. 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.

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