Maré Cheia

Private eye Tim Slade (Don Castle) and newspaperman Hugh Fresney (Lee Tracy) are trapped by their car crash. They wait for their deaths with the incoming high tide. The movie flashes back. Fresney had been writing columns against gangster Nick Dyke. Dyke goes over Fresney's head to make a deal with his boss Clint Vaughn. Fresney hires Slade, "good reporter gone wrong", to join his crusade.

Normally, I love me some film noir. I like the opening premise. Maybe Slade could be trapped in a more precarious position. The waves should be slapping his face to elevate the intensity. In general, I'm not feeling these characters. They are very noir stereotypes. It's falling a little flat but I still like the overall tone. It's a borderline case.

High Tide is from 1947 and stars Lee Tracy and Don Castle, directed by John Reinhardt.

The film opens with two accident victims, still at the scene by the ocean. In the car, badly injured, is Hugh Fresney (Tracy) managing editor of the Los Angeles Courier. Outside the car, with his leg pinned underneath the vehicle is Tim Slade (Castle), ex-reporter turned PI.

High tide will drown them. As they wait, we see in flashback the events that led up to the accident. Slade is in LA from San Francisco at the request of Varney. Varney believes he is going to be murdered by a gangster, Nick Dyke, whom the paper has been crusading against.

If that happens, he wants Slade to avenge him and bring him to justice. While Slade is in town, the paper's publisher, Vaughn, has been murdered. Since Vaughn's wife is in love with Slade, it doesn't look good for him with the police.

Detective O'Haffey (Regis Toomey) in investigating Vaughn's death, suspects Slade, Vaughn's wife, and the gangster Dyke, but Slade has other ideas.

This was slow and talky, also a tad confusing. An average noir with a twist ending that comes out of nowhere. Some reviewers liked it more than I did.

There are B movies from the forties, and then there are really good B movies from the forties. This one belongs in the latter group. A good case could be made that it is among the best B films ever made. It has editing flaws to be sure, and some of the dialogue is corny and there are throwaway lines, but the primary plot and set-up for the film are first-rate. It will keep you guessing from beginning to end, and I guarantee you that you will most likely be guessing wrong, like I did. And I usually don't guess wrong in these films. That alone should tell you something about the plot. Good luck trying to guess the man (or woman?) who is the secret killer.

There honestly is not a whole lot more I can add that the other positive reviewers didn't already say. I do disagree with the ones who said that the movie 'didn't hold together' or that there were plot holes. Not at all... Being an avid fan of Noir films I would say that this one for one of the lesser movies actually comes across as done much better than many of the 'Poverty Row' lower budget Noir films of the time.

The one thing that struck me as very good was the way the director seemed to elicit excellent performances from all involved. I really liked the subtle nuances in personality and style that, to me anyway, seemed a lot better than the way that many of the more 'Cardboard Cutout' Noir characters were cranked out at the time. I really liked the way the main reporter, and the cop, and even the secretary were portrayed. They didn't just seem like stereotypes, but actually 'Came Alive' in their roles which added a real richness to the story.

Take the bad guy, Dike... You only see him really in one brief scene, but I love the way he came across. Not as the usual tough talking 'Heavy', but actually very smoothly with a smile and genuine humour that I thought gave his character, although very brief, a nice genuine and classy touch that you normally didn't see in the run of the mill Noir villains. Also, and this one is SUPER subtle... The driver of the taxi when Slade is being followed, had this almost otherworldly, odd calmness and matter of fact manner when told there was a 'Fiver in it' if he could ditch the other taxi. Extremely brief and subtle, but in my lowly and wretched opinion it's these little and not so little character touches that to me really add up to a very engaging and compelling film.

This is just another good example of how VERY important the director of a movie is in being able to draw out subtle nuances and performances from the actors that can really add a lot of flavour to a film.

What strikes you in this film is the amazingly efficient dialog, that keeps the film rolling on in a constantly more furious tempo, as if both the writer and the director had been in a hurry to reach the end before the high tide comes to engulf them. The sharp curt dialog and the constantly bolting action makes it a little confusing, so this is a film you need to see several times, and even if you watch it again and again, you will still have some difficulty in sorting things out. Usually in noir thrillers like this there is a dame behind it all, knitting it all together, and there is a dame here of course, but she is not knitting it together but rather becomes more of an outsider excluded from the game. The introductory scene is a masterpiece in itself, two hard gamblers in journalism stuck in a wrecked car after an accident driven off the road next to the sea, while the tide Is rising, certain to drown both of them, while they have a few moments to discuss their situation - then follows the long flashback, which is almost the entire film, while you all the time will be waiting for the moment of the accident, what caused it, and the end of it. Since the film is not very long, only 70 minutes, and since the action is constantly racing, you will have no problem waiting for it.