John Reinhardt was Austrian and made his start in films directing foreign versions of American films, with completely different actors speaking languages other than English. He ended up at Poverty Row studio Monogram in the 40's and directed a number of interesting low-budget melodramas there with film noir elements, including dark urban streets, betrayals and femme fatales. High Tide was one of them. It starts out with the swirling waters of the ocean, suggesting the swirling and changing plot, and moves to two men trapped in a wrecked car as the tide comes in. The men are Tim Slade (Don Castle) and Hugh Fresney (Lee Tracy) and the film quickly moves to flashback, with newspaper editor Fresney hiring Slade as a bodyguard. Fresney had been in love with Julie Bishop (Julie Vaughn), currently married to newpaper owner Clinton Vaughn (Douglas Walton), and when Julie tries to renew the romance Slade turns to Vaughn's secretary Dana Jones (Anabel Shaw). Then things become complicated, as Vaughn is killed and so is Pop Garron (Francis Ford), a man with a portfolio of secrets.
Slade investigates, with the help of Dana and tells Fresney, as they drive together, what he knows about Fresney's role in all this, including three murders. Fresney drives off the road and crashes the car at the edge of the ocean as the tide comes in. Slade is able to dig himself out but Fresney insists that he be left in the wrecked car as the tide comes in. High Tide is dark, both literally and figuratively, as Reinhardt and cinematographer Henry Sharp (who worked on films with Fritz Lang) shot this low-budget film almost entirely at nigth in a claustrophobic environemnt with only back projection supplying any light.
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