Night Tide (1961) / Revisit

When I first got Shudder right before the Pandemic, this was on one of their channels late at night. I had seen this in one of those Mill Creek 100 or 50 movie packs of public domain titles but never had I seen <b>NIght Tide</b> in this good a shape. So for me personally, the film's appeal really isn't as much about the story -- sailor on leave decides to spend some time in Santa Monica, California, falling in love with an enigmatic young woman named Mora who portrays (or does she?) a mermaid in a sideshow near an amusement park surrounded by pier -- as it is the location/setting at that particular time of 1960 and a young Dennis Hopper, so young, soft-faced, and healthy. It's crazy to think Hopper has been gone 12 years now. He was just a fresh-faced kid of 24 when he starred as the young sailor, Johnny Drake.

I think I just find myself captivated by time and place more than anything else. Watching Hopper do nightly Santa Monica pier walkabouts, the little apartment where Mora eats breakfast with Johnny (sadly, what came to mind was how much that would cost someone in California today), the idyllic ocean and beach attractively photographed to be so enchanting, the doomed romance of Mora and Johnny possibly due to a yarn spun by Captain Murdock (Muir) to keep his "adopted daughter" from leaving, the jazz club visit at the beginning, and the various boardwalk offerings Johnny takes in (such as the merry go round operated by the pretty Luana Anders, an independent film staple in the 60s, and the clairvoyant who reads his tarot, a fun Eaton, who really makes the most of her limited screen time). 

I think what is unfortunate is that this is marketed as a horror film. To me, this suffers for that as I'm afraid many will consider this a "monster fish" campy creature feature. Besides nightmare / fantasy sequences where Johnny's mind has developed a fear of losing Mora because of her "affliction", this is more about Johnny refusing to believe she is a danger to him, concerned for her mental health, feeling she's been convinced of her responsibility of the deaths of two young men as a result of being a mermaid. I did think the conclusion was maybe the best route...in trying to keep Mora from leaving him through planted fables about being a member of sea people, taken from an island by him, she can't have Johnny felled as others were, worried for his well being.

When this was in rotation on that Shudder "Slashics" channel, I found myself letting it play as I fell asleep each night until it was removed. It seemed like the perfect kind of channel filler in the 70s for late night insomniacs. I certainly could see myself watching this back to back with Corman's "The Terror" or "Bucket of Blood".