Some movies experience the theatrical-release equivalent of a still birth yet never seem to stay dead. Such is Night Tide, written and directed by Curtis Harrington and completed for release in 1961, though it didn't get full distribution until 1963. It quickly slipped into obscurity but began to be revived in the 1990s after its star, Dennis Hopper, enjoyed a comeback after wrecking the career he only started to build years after this, his first leading role in a movie. (It's since been issued on DVD with a commentary track featuring both Harrington, who died last year, and Hopper. Last week, a restored 35-mm. print was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival.) Hopper, wearing an Eminem hairdo and a sailor suit that makes him look like part of the male chorus singing behind Fred Astaire and Randolph Scott in Follow the Fleet, plays a sea-farin' man who wanders into a boardwalk carnival reminiscent of the one where Ray Dennis Steckler stopped living and became a mixed-up zombie. There he meets Mora (Linda Lawson), dark-haired beauty whose blank gaze stops the camera cold in the middle of a dolly shot. She's sitting in a beachfront hangout listening to a jazz combo, and Hopper introduces himself by asking if he can join her at her table because, from where he was sitting, he couldn't see the band. She nods yes, and in response, he sits down facing her, with his back to the musicians. It's little things like this that explain why Dennis Hopper's Smooth Moves Guide to Meeting Girls sold so poorly.
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