A Monogram Pictures product, High Tide has the dubious distinction of falling under another moniker: Poverty Row. Whenever you hear that appellation, you will feel secure in knowing that you are watching a "B" noir.
As usual, the script features characters that are hardly fleshed out at all. It's simply a murder mystery in which initially we're asked who fired shots at crusading newspaper editor Hugh Fresney (Lee Tracy) and his milquetoast boss, publisher Clinton Vaughn (Douglas Walton) while they're driving back to Vaughn's LA home.
Various red herrings are introduced. Chief among them is the co-star of the picture, former reporter turned gumshoe Tim Slade (Don Castle) who Fresney hires to protect him from a coterie of suspects. Those include gangster Nick Garde (Anthony Warde), a reporter who Fresney fired and vowed to get even with him, as well as a woman who blamed Vaughn's paper for turning the public against her husband, a criminal who ends up executed in the gas chamber.
Slade is also suspected after Vaughn's wife Julie (Julie Bishop) seeks to resurrect a prior relationship. An incriminating letter turns up written by Julie expressing her dislike for her husband and Slade has her give him temporary rights to run the paper after Vaughn is murdered.
When Vaughn is killed, Fresney is also shot but survives after only sustaining a flesh wound. The High Tide scenarists do a good job of misdirecting your attention from the real killer until the climax when it's revealed that it was Fresney all along who was in cahoots with the mob.
A framing device begins the film with Slade trapped beneath a car and Fresney badly hurt inside as the high tide begins to creep in on a beach. At the end, we see how the two ended up in their predicament: Fresney drove the car off a cliff after Slade pegs him for both the murder of Vaughn and Garde.
Slade is able to dig his legs out from under the crashed car after Fresney lets him go (as both of them were fairly good friends before everything goes awry).
The acting here is perfunctory and as I indicated there is little to no character development. Only the revelation of Fresney's culpability comes as a decent twist. Thus, High Tide is saved by its plot despite having all the trappings of a typical "B" crime thriller.
As usual, the script features characters that are hardly fleshed out at all. It's simply a murder mystery in which initially we're asked who fired shots at crusading newspaper editor Hugh Fresney (Lee Tracy) and his milquetoast boss, publisher Clinton Vaughn (Douglas Walton) while they're driving back to Vaughn's LA home.
Various red herrings are introduced. Chief among them is the co-star of the picture, former reporter turned gumshoe Tim Slade (Don Castle) who Fresney hires to protect him from a coterie of suspects. Those include gangster Nick Garde (Anthony Warde), a reporter who Fresney fired and vowed to get even with him, as well as a woman who blamed Vaughn's paper for turning the public against her husband, a criminal who ends up executed in the gas chamber.
Slade is also suspected after Vaughn's wife Julie (Julie Bishop) seeks to resurrect a prior relationship. An incriminating letter turns up written by Julie expressing her dislike for her husband and Slade has her give him temporary rights to run the paper after Vaughn is murdered.
When Vaughn is killed, Fresney is also shot but survives after only sustaining a flesh wound. The High Tide scenarists do a good job of misdirecting your attention from the real killer until the climax when it's revealed that it was Fresney all along who was in cahoots with the mob.
A framing device begins the film with Slade trapped beneath a car and Fresney badly hurt inside as the high tide begins to creep in on a beach. At the end, we see how the two ended up in their predicament: Fresney drove the car off a cliff after Slade pegs him for both the murder of Vaughn and Garde.
Slade is able to dig his legs out from under the crashed car after Fresney lets him go (as both of them were fairly good friends before everything goes awry).
The acting here is perfunctory and as I indicated there is little to no character development. Only the revelation of Fresney's culpability comes as a decent twist. Thus, High Tide is saved by its plot despite having all the trappings of a typical "B" crime thriller.