FOLIO
Recently released on Blu-ray in remastered editions are two oddball gems (Night Tide and Queen of Blood) that connoisseurs of independent American films should investigate. They were written and directed by Curtis Harrington in 1961 and 1966, respectively. While most viewers today are probably not too familiar with Curtis Harrington (who died in 2007 at 80), chances are older fans of science-fiction and fantasy (in particular) have seen one or more of his productions, either on the big screen or on television.
And chances are you remember the films, even if you’ve forgotten who made them. Curtis Harrington was that kind of filmmaker.
Night Tide was his first feature, filmed on an estimated budget of $25,000, featuring Dennis Hopper in his first starring role as young sailor Johnny Drake, who becomes involved with Mora (her name means “Star of the Sea”), a beautiful woman who may or may not be one of the “sea people.”
On leave at a beachside amusement carnival, Johnny first sees Mora (Linda Lawson) in her act as a kind of sideshow mermaid. As they grow closer, the young woman seems ever more mysterious in her attachment to the ocean, which she seems to find frightening and alluring in equal measure. Meanwhile, Johnny begins to hear stories about Mora and her former boyfriends, both of whom met their deaths at sea. Mora’s stepfather, a retired sea captain and the sideshow manager, is less than forthcoming as well. And what about the mysterious older woman, hovering on the edge of it all like some sort of wraith?
Making excellent use of black-and-white photography to heighten the film’s moody sense of unreality, Harrington fashions an ambiguous, haunting fable of lost love and alienation. Night Tide isn’t really a horror film, as is often suggested, nor possibly even a fantasy. Like Alfred Hitchcock did at the conclusion of Psycho (when the psychiatrist “explains” Norman Bates’ peculiar fixations), Harrington has one of his characters similarly illuminate Mora’s neuroses.
Brilliantly, however, the identity (even existence) of the older shadowy woman (played by Marjorie Cameron) is left in doubt, Harrington ending the film with the final lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee, from which he also derived the film’s title. Even Hitchcock was never so deliberately, wonderfully ambiguous.
The greatest strengths of Harrington’s feature debut are the writing, editing, and evocative cinematography. The acting is occasionally wooden and spotty, Harrington less experienced with performers at this stage in his career as with concept and vision. For such a low-budget feature, though, it’s definitely a minor quibble.
Made five years later, Queen of Blood was Harrington’s third film, his second for Roger Corman. Like its immediate predecessor, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, Queen of Blood combines footage cobbled from an early ’60s Soviet sci-fi film (purchased for a pittance by Corman) and incorporated (quite effectively) into an entirely different story
by Harrington.
In a nutshell (and less than 80 minutes), some American astronauts take off on a rescue mission to Mars where an alien ship has crashed. The only survivor is a green-skinned babe with glowing eyes and a weird hairdo (the prototype of Lisa Marie’s Martian girl in Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!). On the journey back to Earth, she demonstrates her peculiar appetite, which gives the film its title.
The cast is headlined by square-jawed John Saxon, with Judi Meredith as a fellow astronaut and love interest. Basil Rathbone (near the end of his distinguished career) was hired to do some scenes as the project coordinator, and Dennis Hopper (far more relaxed than in Night Tide and ad-libbing well) returns in a strong supporting role. Practically stealing the movie without a word of dialogue is Czech actress Florence Marly as the Alien Queen.
The miniscule budget clearly shows, but so does the imagination and artistry of Curtis Harrington. Night Tide is the superior film, but Queen of Blood is still a lot of fun. Neither has ever looked better.
Follow FOLIO!