Maré Cheia

"High Tide" is a crime film that in many ways seems like film noir. While it doesn't have the terrific camerawork you'd expect with noir, the snappy dialog, violence and dark tone of the film make it noir in my book.

The film begins with two men after a wreck tosses them and the car into the surf. Tim (Don Castle) has a leg pinned under it and Hugh (Lee Tracy) is too badly hurt to move. The tide is coming in and the two men appear about to drown...and then the film goes back in time to eventually show you how the two men got into these straits.

The story that follows is about a newspaper...which isn't surprising considering Tracy played reporters in films more than any actor I can think of right now...but it clearly must have been a few dozen times. Some hoods are apparently chasing after Hugh and so he hires Tim to investigate and be his body guard. Soon Hugh is shot, but survives...but the owner of the paper is killed. Instead of waiting for the cops to investigate the case, Tim does what is common in B-movies of the day...he investigates himself and soon becomes a suspect in the crime. What's next? See the film.

I liked the story very much and the acting as well. However, be prepared to feel a bit confused about the surprise ending! Tim apparently figures out the entire conspiracy even though logically it was difficult for him to have done so. So, I say watch this still good film and just accept the twist on face value and don't question it.

...but then I always love watching Lee Tracy at work, so that does make up for the lackluster execution of what could have been a good little mystery.

The film opens in an interesting manner with two guys at the site of a wrecked car with the tide coming in. They are both injured and sure to drown if something or someone does not intervene. It is obvious from the conversation that one of them is the bad guy but which one? This is to get your interest, then the film cuts to the back story which amounts to the entire movie.

Lee Tracy plays Hugh Fresney, editor of a Los Angeles newspaper. Somebody takes a couple of shots at him and the owner of the paper, Clinton Vaughn, one night, and Fresney is not sure whether the shots were meant for him or for Vaughn, so he calls up an ex-employee of the paper (Don Castle as Tim Slade) to investigate the situation. However, the reason for Slade being an ex-employee is that he was in love with Clinton Vaughn's wife, and in fact, still seems to be so. There are lots of side spats and odd goings on that keep you guessing until the entire thing is unraveled in a monologue that is delivered at such a machine gun pace that you will have to rewind a couple of times to catch everything.

Another problem is that just about every player in this film is so anonymous that it is hard to keep track of who is who, plus a couple of the players are so physically similar to one another that you won't be able to tell which character is actually on screen at the time. Then there are characters that show up, do or say something odd, and are never mentioned again. There is the question as to why Slade is so vital to solving this case when he was just a reporter before, not a P.I., and why the investigating police detective, played by the not so anonymous character actor Regis Toomey, seems so impotent and pig headed about everything. He's a great cartoon of a cop, but not much of a problem solver. Finally there is Julie Bishop as Julie, a secretary who only shares a couple of scenes and a couple of sentences with Slade, yet she seems to gather from him saying "You should see the lights of San Francisco some time" - Slade's new hometown - as a proposal...and she is right? Usually they have a name for girls who make such assumptions and that name is stalker, but here it is fiancée! I'd watch it for the weirdness of it all and for Lee Tracy, who gave every role his all. It's just too bad he blacklisted himself from A list productions back in 1934.

Flicker Alley and The Film Noir Foundation's latest release focuses on two forgotten films from Monogram Pictures that were shot back to back in 1947. They feature the same director (John Bernhard), the same producer (Jack Wrather), the same cameraman (Henry Sharp) and the same leading man (Don Castle). Both clock in at 71 minutes and are Film Noir stripped down to its bare essentials. The two films were intended to be companion pieces and make an excellent double feature which is the best way to see them. The movies are THE GUILTY and HIGH TIDE and they should be viewed in that order. Also contributing to their ressurection are the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the British Film Institute.

THE GUILTY is truly an example of minimalist filmmaking. It was shot on just three sets with a minimum of exteriors. There are 3 principal characters along with just a couple of supporting roles. The movie was shot in less than 2 weeks on a budget of $150,000 and looks it but that is a plus not a minus. The source material is a short story by Noir specialist Cornell Woolrich. It concerns two army buddies who share a dingy apartment. They both love the same woman who has a twin sister. When the twin is murdered, one of the roommates (who also is the film's narrator) tries to figure it out. He does but with a neat little twist at the end. Former juvenile actress Bonita Granville plays the twins.

HIGH TIDE had a higher budget which allowed for more sets and more exteriors although many are rear projections. The movie is a showcase for Lee Tracy who portrays his archetypal newspaper character from the 1930s except he's now older and more hard edged. An unscrupulous editor takes out a life insurance policy and names a former reporter turned private investigator (Castle) as the beneficiary. After attempts on the editor's life are made, the P. I. tries to track down those responsible. Complicating matters are an old flame and a criminal kingpin. The film opens and closes with Tracy and Castle trapped in a wrecked car on the beach while the high tide is rolling in. Most of the movie is a flashback explaining how they got there.

Future Disneyland hotel owner and 1950s TV magnate Jack Wrather (he produced the hit shows THE LONE RANGER, SGT PRESTON OF THE YUKON, and LASSIE) financed both of these movies. THE GUILTY was meant to showcase his future wife Bonita Granville and his fellow Texan, Don Castle. Castle is very good as the lead in both films but is overshadowed by Tracy in HIGH TIDE as Tracy has the juicier part and better dialogue. Both pictures were adapted by Robert Presnell Sr. Who does a good job in tweaking the plots and keeping most of the original dialogue intact. HIGH TIDE is based on a story by Raoul Whitfield who wrote alongside Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler at BLACK MASK magazine.

Sincere thanks are due to the British Film Institute as they provided the prints used for these restorations. In fact both movies open with the British Board Of Censors' approval certificates. After finding them in their archives, the BFI turned the films over to the Film Noir Foundation who gave them to the UCLA Film & Television archive for restoration. After the restoration was complete, the FNF in conjunction with Flicker Alley prepared this Blu-Ray for commercial release. As we have come to expect from this partnership, we not only get the two movies but lots of supplements as well from documentaries on the creators to a 22 page booklet featuring book to movie comparisons. An outstanding release for Noir fans...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

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.

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.