Night Tide

A LOW BUDGET THRILLER modeled on Cat People. The young lonesome sailor Johnny Drake is bewitched by the beautiful Mora who works as a mermaid at an amusement park in Venice, California. _
Comment:
NIGHT TIDE WAS THE FIRST independent film that I starred in. Curtis Harrington and I made it for 28.000 USD in the 1950's. Since it was an independent production, and away from the studios, we couldn't get the LA. bug, which in my country is a union approval, and so the projectionists in the theaters would not show the film. Wc were on the TIME Magazine's list of the top ten films to see for a year, and we couldn't get it in the theaters. It was Henri Langois', founder of the Cinematheque Francais, favorite film of mine, as well as one of his favorite American films. It certainly was the first independent film ever made in the United States. When Langois opened the Cinematheque in Nice on July 5,1976, I was the honored guest speaker, and he showed Night Tide. It's a performance I gave when I was about twenty-three years old, and I've always felt secretely directed. _
DENNIS HOPPER