Review of Night Tide (1961) by Robert B — 29 May 2012

Night Tide (Curtis Harrington, 1961).

These days, Curtis Harrington is remembered as a directorâ"when he is remembered at allâ"for such Z-grade horror productions as the made-for-TV Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell and Killer Bees. But Harrington was a great deal more than a made-for-TV hack, having started off his career as a film critic and actor (most notably in Kenneth Anger's Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome) who dabbled in avant-garde shorts before turning to horror. There's still a bit of that in Night Tide, Harrington's first feature, but not enough to make it more than a run-of-the-mill mermaid tale. Still, it's acres better than Killer Bees.

Plot: Johnny Drake (Dennis Hopper) is a sailor on leave in Venice Beach, CA. While taking in the sights at a small jazz club, he finds himself drawn to Mora (Sometimes a Great Notion's Linda Lawson, better-remembered these days as a nightclub singer than an actress), who plays a mermaid at a local carnival. Or is she just playing? One way or the other, however, her boyfriends seem to have a habit of turning up dead, as Johnny is informed by the local fortune teller, Madame Romanovitch (Mary Poppins' Marjorie Eaton). Which wouldn't be a problem, since Johnny has another possible romantic interestâ"Ellen (Dementia 13's Luana Anders), the carousel owner's granddaughterâ"except that Mora seems to have this almost supernatural hold over him...

It's a pretty good flick, often compared to Carnival of Souls in that they both rely pretty heavily on atmosphere for their thrills, which was pretty gutsy when the horror landscape was full of radioactive monsters. Night Tide is more effective atmospherically than Carnival of Souls, and it has more fully-realized characters, but it still feels wooden; there's a very good reason Lawson is better remembered as a nightclub singer these days.

There are also those who will complain about the quotidian ending, and I've seen more than one person comment that some things are left unresolved. Don't be that guy. You pay enough attention to the last five minutes of the movie and it all makes sense. It's not nearly as quotidian as you think. Solid filmmaking, not necessarily something to go out of your way to hunt down, but if you see it show up late night on Turner Classic Movies, it's worth eating up an hour and a half of DVR space for. ***.