Filmmaker Pat Rocco’s Fevered Queer Indie Drama
DIRECTED BY PAT ROCCO/1974
BLU-RAY STREET DATE: FEBRUARY 20, 2024/KINO CULT
“Mind if I get a drink? That popcorn made me dry.”
“Not too dry, I hope.”
“No… just thirsty.”
*****
As the current physical media age of boutique labels increasingly stresses “time capsule” value ahead of cinematic value (I’m looking at you, Vinegar Syndrome), it’s important not to completely lose sight of competent moviemaking, in all its odd forms. Likewise, however, it’s also important to properly consider emerging priorities in the assessment of things. For stretches, certainly at a glance, indie maverick Pat Rocco’s 1974 drama Drifter, viewed through the eyes of today, appears to excel in the former category while bombing out in the latter. Drifter (also known as “Two Way Drift”, its onscreen title), though, is no tossed-off bit of artless tripe.
Granted, this ninety-eight-minute tale of a chronically frustrated bisexual hustler isn’t without its moments of sore-thumb amateurishness. Early on, as the stylish opening titles end, we see a car pull up to Roy & Lorene’s diner… twice… in a row. It’s the exact same shot both times. This seeming gaffe undercuts the otherwise accomplished opening titles sequence, itself effectively set to dangerously ominous jazz music. It’s unfortunate that such a noticeable goof plays out so early in the picture, as it genuinely gives the wrong idea about the movie proper. The R-rated Drifter may be aesthetically rough and never an easy watch, but it does not drift by on its very countercultural laurels.
Frozen in its time, Drifter is indeed a gritty, grainy celluloid time capsule of a certain bygone queer aesthetic and paranoid vibe. Produced, directed, shot, and edited by Rocco, it is now thawed out and presented in style by Kino Lorber’s new and hoppin’ Kino Cult line. Although the film originally didn’t get released until 1974, it was, according to Pat Rocco expert & queer film historian Finley Freibert’s deep-diving commentary, filmed in 1969. While such a five-year gap between production and release may muddy the waters of relevant fashion and fury as observed, the influence of John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy appears heavily in play. (The poster’s tagline looks to distance the two while playing into the easy evocation:
“DRIFTER IS:
A LOVER
A LOSER
A LABEL
A BANDIT
AND AN OUTLAW
BUT DRIFTER IS NOT A COWBOY!”
The main character, Drift, as embodied by Joe Adair is a confused menace by design. His shirt is tightly tucked but fully unbuttoned; his sleeves are rolled something fierce; a cross necklace nestles uneasily in his chest hair. Adair, throughout Drifter, is nothing short of a powder keg of volatility. For particular viewers, his soft yet edgy persona is an old-school gay-culture thirst trap, though in the case of Drift, the emphasis must be on “trap.”
We watch as Drift ventures from one disappointing relationship to another, cross-cutting between past and present, with both men and women. Sometimes, he’s the abuser, as he is with the far gentler Steven (David Russell). As an older opportunist, Klamath, (Bambi Allen) thrusts him into a quagmire of soul-sucking male-centric sex work, he becomes taken with a young girl he happens upon, Karen (Inga-Maria Pinson). Karen proves enigmatic to Drift, who is no stranger to being an enigma himself. Later, in a truly strange anti-sex scene set at some sort of Mario Bava-lit stag party, this fascination seems to come back to haunt both Drift and Drifter proper.
Prior to that, a profoundly sad yet flamboyant gay man (Gerald Strickland) momentarily overtakes Drifter, driving home just how lonely and isolating it was to have been queer in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s. This melancholy-at-best labor of love is not the out-and-out sexploitation blast that one might expect going in.
Salvaged from a probable doom of deterioration, Kino Cult’s Blu-ray release (spine #6) hails from a 2K film restoration from the original 16mm A/B negatives as preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Included as extras are four short films by Pat Rocco, all from this era: Autumn Nocturne (1968, 24 min.), A Matter of Life (1968, 14 min. featuring Joe Adair), Strip Strip (1968, 5 min.), Sunny Boys (1968, 3 min.). Even more obscure than Drifter itself, the presence of these accompanying films is intuitive and obvious yet were no doubt challenging to wrestle up.
Queer exploitation without pornographic intent (Rocco would go that route later), Drifter does indeed take us into a world of not so long ago wherein, for many, the sadness of sex is all there was. The Blu-ray (replete with a retro-styled slipcover and reversable artwork) is a “time capsule” release of the best kind in that is also takes an auteur-minded approach to a very unique talent who sadly found himself and his work relegated to a bin labeled “degenerate.”