Night Tide (1961) Venice Beach / Santa Monica Pier Transitional Noir

"Beatnik Noir"

Night Tide is one of those fringe noirs that strayed away from the Crime genre. As the Motion Picture Production Code weakened and B unit productions ceased at the major studios independent poverty row and low budget film creators were exploring with more artistic freedom.

So those Film Noir that went too far over the line depicting violence started getting classified as Horror, Thriller (even though they were just say, showing the effects of a gunshot wound, or dealing with weird serial killers, maniacs, and psychotics, etc.). Those that went too far depicting sexual, drug, torture, etc., situations were being lumped into or classed as various Exploitation flicks, (even though they are relatively tame comparably to today's films). The the noir-ish films that dealt with everything else, except Crime, concerning the human condition were labeled Dramas and Suspense. Those that tried new techniques, lenses, etc., were labeled Experimental. Some films are so so bad in all aspects that they acquire the "so bad it's good" Cult status. What was happening is Classic Noir was beginning to morph into Neo Noir.

Night Tide was written and directed by Curtis Harrington (What's the Matter with Helen? (1971), Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)) and shot in the noir visual style with Cinematography by Vilis Lapenieks (The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Fallguy (1962), and Floyd Crosby (High Noon (1952), Man in the Dark (1953), Shack Out on 101 (1955), I Mobster (1959)). 

Music was by David Raksin (Laura (1944), Fallen Angel (1945), Force of Evil (1948), Whirlpool (1950), The Big Combo (1955)).



The film stars Dennis Hopper (Naked City TV Series (1958–1963), River's Edge (1986), Blue Velvet (1986), Red Rock West (1993), True Romance (1993)) as Johnny, Linda Lawson (Mike Hammer TV Series (1958–1959), Peter Gunn TV Series (1958–1961), 77 Sunset Strip
TV Series (1958–1964)) as Mora.

With Luana Anders as Ellen Sands, (Reform School Girl (1957), Dementia 13 (1963), The Two Jakes (1990)), Gavin Muir (Nightmare (1942), Chicago Deadline (1949))  as Captain Murdock, and Marjorie Eaton as Madame Romanovitch.

Story

A sailor Johnny Drake is on shore leave down at the Santa Monica pier. He's leaning on a railing. looking at the beach and the sunset. 

Johnny turns around and walks down along the boardwalk amusements. 

He walks into an arcade and amuses himself stepping on a weigh scale, getting his picture taken in a photobooth. 

Dennis Hopper as Johnny

He eventually leaves the arcade and continues walking drifting South down the street eventually to Venice Beach. There, Johnny becomes drawn to the jazz music emanating from a cellar coffeehouse, a beatnik mecca called the Blue Grotto. 

Johnny goes in the door. The music is louder. He drops down a long stair to the Grotto.

The Grotto looked like your typical subterranean dive bar partially repurposed as coffee house, festooned with typical beach town decor consisting of fishnets, coral, and starfish juxtaposed with beat paintings and expresso urns.

Along a wall a four piece jazz combo is clicking. Johnny grabs a beer and and finds a spot to sit along side the band.

While surveying the bar patrons Johnny spots Mora grooving to to tunes across the room. 

Linda Lawson as Mora

Johnny gabs his beer and on an impulse goes over to Mora's table. She a bit of a cold fish at first but she finally warms to Johnny a bit until she is confronted by a strange woman in a flowing black dress who speaks to her in a different language. Mora looks upset and tells Johnny she has to go, she gives Johnny some money to pay her bill and she splits heading for the stairway out.

Marjorie Cameron as the Water Witch

Johnny leaves the money on the table runs after her. She walks towards the ocean and turns a corner. Johnny runs towards it. When Johnny catches up Mora demands to know what he wants. Johnny tells her he just wants to walk her home if that is alright. Mora agrees and they walk back up to the Santa Monica Pier where Johnny is surprised to find out that she lives above the carousel.

Johnny tries to convince Mora to let him come up, but Mora tells him no, but she does invite him over for breakfast in the morning. 

Johnny kisses her on the side of the head and then ecstatically climbs up and balances himself on a railing at the edge of the boardwalk.

The next day Johnny arrives just as the carousel is opening for the day. He meets the operator and gets a small tour of the carved horses. During his convo with the operator he mentions that he's there to see Mora. The operator asks Johnny if he's known her long Johnny lies and says yes. Hummm.

Johnny heads back outside to the stairway entrance to the upstairs apartments. Spots Mora's apt nuber from her mail box, and heads up the stairs. 

The hall at the top of the stairs is also part gallery. It overlooks the carousel on the inside. The numbered apartments line the opposite side.

Johnny finds a mirror checks himself out, then finds Mora's door and knocks. They have breakfast of fish. fresh mackerel. on her porch overlooking the beach and the breakers along the coast South. They talk about themselves. Mora tells Johnny that she is one of the pier attractions.  Mora the Mermaid.

The side show is owned and operated by Captain Murdock. He also functions as the talker drumming up marks. After their meal Mora tells Johnny that she has to go to work (Sunday is a big day at the amusement pier) and so she brings Johnny down the pier to her attraction where Johnny meets Captain Morgan. 

Gavin Muir as Captain Murdock

Mora excuses herself and leaves to put on her costume for the shows. Johnny and Captain Murdock shoot the breeze on the pier until she is ready and then Johnny sees Mora's act. She lays on a simulated ocean bed of sand with seashells and clams etc. Above her is an aquarium tank of water. The marks see her by looking through the aquarium and the effect is that she is underwater. Johnny watches her combing her long black hair that teasingly covers both of her breasts. 

Mora and Johnny hit it off, going on dates to the beach, and swimming in the Pacific. Johnny becomes friends with the various pier people, Captain Murdock, the Sands who run the carousel Madame Romanovitch the pier's tarot card reader and he sees again the strange woman in flowing black (the Water Witch). 

Marjorie Eaton as Madame Romanovitch, Johnny, and Luana Anders as Ellen Sands

The only fly in the ointment is the fact that all the denizens of the amusement pier wonder if Johnny will be the next victim of Mora's curse. Johnny is in the dark until Ellen Sands the carousel operators daughter fills johnny in on Mora's past.

"Her two last boyfriends died mysteriously washing up on beach"

Ellen warns Johnny that all her previous boyfriends die. Johnny discovers through his convos with Captain Murdock and from Mora herself told him about her past on a Greek island that Mora believes that she is a descendant of the Sirens mythic ocean creatures who lure men to their deaths. 

One night at bonfire at a beach party Mora does a dance to a bongo beat and at its end both Mora and Johnny, again see standing by a tiki torch, the strange woman that Johnny saw the first night he met Mora. A sea witch of the sirens?, or some local Venice nut job.

As Mora and Johnny's relationship grows stronger Mora is afraid that on the night of the full moon, when the tide pull is the strongest, she will kill Johnny. 

It goes Noirsville during a diving trip with Johnny on the day of the full moon Mora cuts Johnny's air line so that he must surface, while she drowns herself. By sacrificing herself Johnny will live.

When Johnny visits the Mermaid sideshow the next night he sees Mora's lifeless body in the tank. A deranged Captain Murdock confronts Johnny with a gun. It was a jealous Murdock who was killing Mora's suiters and who convinced her that she was an actual mermaid.

Noirsville

The film is a good example of how at the end of the Classic Noir and Motion Picture Production Code era combined with the switch of B unit Film Production into TV Productions, the Noir style began to slowly diffuse/fuse into genres other than pure Crime, though here there is a Crime element linked to sort of a bogus Fantasy/Occult con, in this respect it's similar to Nightmare Alley (1947), and The Amazing Mr. X (1948). 

Also if you watch enough of these late 1950s early 1960s Noir you'll notice scuba themes in the plots. The only thing I can think of that must have influenced the productions was the enormous popularity t 

Sea Hunt TV Series that ran from 1958–1961. Films I've since run across are The Snorkel, Shack on 101, Walk the Angry Beach, and a few others that slip my mind. 

Screencaps are from a more recent restoration by NWR. Entertaining 7.5 /10