Dry and Thirsty

Set against the parched backdrop of the nascent Volstead Act, 'Dry and Thirsty' chronicles the quixotic odyssey of Horace Radish, a man whose physiological and psychological requirement for spirits borders on the transcendental. As the American landscape transforms into a barren desert of enforced sobriety, Radish embarks on a series of increasingly desperate and frantic stratagems to procure clandestine libations. His pilgrimage of desire eventually leads him to the Bootlegger's Haven Hotel—a mirage of hope in a dry wasteland. However, this purported sanctuary is guarded by the implacable William Allways Tryan, a lawman whose very nomenclature suggests an inexhaustible, vituperative resolve to uphold temperance. The film dissolves into a frantic ballet of evasion and pursuit, where the stakes are a single drop of amber liquid and the cost is total incarceration, presenting a kinetic study of human desperation through the lens of early slapstick.