Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
Ella-May O'Brien
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Matho
The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.
Alex da Silva
But I'm holdin' on..... That's what Blondie sang and that's the advice that seems most relevant to the opening scene. Newspaper editor Lee Tracy (Fresnay) and private investigator Don Castle (Slade) are trapped in a car after an accident and can't get out with the tide rapidly coming in and threatening to drown them. It's an interesting start to the film and their story is recounted in flashback.Unfortunately, Lee Tracy has a comic voice - he sounds ridiculous although he is effective in his role. The dialogue is crisp and moves the film along at a quick speed so pay attention or you may get behind with the plot. It revolves around a newspaper breaking criminal stories and the ruthless manipulations that are necessary to be in control. You may not guess the outcome - I had it the other way round!The quality of the picture isn't great and unfortunately, you can't really make anything out in the night time scenes which loses the film a point. My wife thought this film was shit. I say it's ok.
boblipton
Lee Tracy and Don Castle are trapped, dying in a crashed car at the beach. Flashback. Castle has just been hired as a PI by Tracy, playing a newspaper editor, to figure out who's been threatening him. Trouble is, Tracy's boss doesn't like Castle, because Castle and Julie Bishop, the boss' wife, had been a hot item, and she still wants him. So when the boss is shot and Tracy is wounded, things get even more confused....The trouble with HIGH TIDE is this: there's a good story in there, and all the actors are good and make their lines sound real. The problem is those lines are trite. It looks as if some one saw one of the defining 'tec film noirs, like MURDER MY SWEET and said "Write in a scene where he gets worked over, and then shows up at the girl's house and cracks wise," so the writer does, and "Make the older woman jealous of the younger one." Unfortunately, by the time all these scenes had been written in, there was no way to write in the bits to connect them and make sense of them and keep things moving along at a tight 72 minutes. The result is a very watchable flick, with great moments, that doesn't, alas, bear much thought
arikkr
this is another nice lesson of the imaginative inspiring little movie,done away the assembly-line. it must be mentioned that part of the success really must be attributed to the author of the novel - Raoul Whitefield' a forgotten name' but a good artist of the tough-guy school. he was one of the stable-of-talents on a wonderful magazine,IT the 30th, called "the black mask" among them the legendary dash Hammett and Raymond chandler' but also wonderful talents like Whitefield and Horace McCoy(famous later for his masterpiece "they shoot horses don't they"). what a pity that all this is gone by now, in a world of cooperates and brainless big lush productions. its our loss and lets pray for some brave creative producer to save us...
goblinhairedguy
"High Tide" is a totally obscure but wonderful B-movie film noir from the Monogram mill. It opens with a car careening off a desolate seaside cliff -- its two occupants (Lee Tracy and Don Castle) injured and trapped in the wreckage. As the turbulent tide quickly threatens to engulf them, the events leading up to their predicament are recounted -- a twisty tale of a cynical, crusading newspaper editor (Tracy, naturally) taking on the mob while the high-living owner frets. The latter has even more problems when Tracy hires his jaded wife's ex-lover (Castle) as a private investigator.Solidly directed by John Reinhardt (who also triumphed with another seedy, minimally-budgeted Monogram noir called "The Guilty"), the dialog is snappy but eloquent, there are plenty of venetian-blind shadows, silhouetted figures and moody low-key lighting, and the plot is nicely unraveled. Only the annoying library-style music lets the side down (lending it that inevitable "B" quality, of course). Tracy was playing out the string on poverty row at the time, but his wry staccato readings and weary-but-steadfast demeanor are a perfect fit here.
