Johnny Drake - - Night Tide (1961)

In Night Tide we are offered Dennis Hopper’s first starring role. The movie was made after Hopper had returned to Hollywood from Lee Strasberg care and training.  By now, James Dean was five years dead; the shootouts with director Henry Hathaway were also over. Hopper was working primarily in television and building his understanding of basic storytelling on a tight budget. All of this is used in this simple but artistic little movie, shot in and around the Santa Monica and Venice beachfront.

It’s one of Hopper’s most charming roles. He was in his early twenties and at the peak of his physical attractiveness. But beyond that, he invests the role with a oddball innocence that is crucial to the story, a young sailor in love with a woman who may or may not be a real mermaid. The influence of beatnik culture, early 60’s cinema of the macabre, and New Wave cinematography is also put into service. Hopper’s characterization sponges up all of these influences, adding to many of his now signature, quirky, gawky mannerisms. The primary motif seems to be eagerness. Johnny Drake is eager to please, eager to be accepted, eager for experiences - - all of this eagerness delightfully refracted by of the splendid cast.

One of the most appealing castings is fellow TV trooper and Roger Corman perennial, Luana Anders, who represents the ‘normal’ girl that Johnny is better off pursuing. Their scenes together have a naturalism contrasted nicely by ‘Mora the Mermaid’ and the rest of the sideshow. There is a nostalgic, summer-night flavor to their sequences, like a justly remembered Twilight Zone. Hopper cast her again in Easy Rider and they were close friends until her death in 1996.  One wishes they had worked together more often.

But it’s very likely that this movie did Hopper’s career more damage than his famous studio fights. It demonstrated that his sense memories of farm boy loneliness were powerfully affecting when appropriately utilized After this, how could he return to  Henry Hathaway (although he did in The Sons of Katie Elder) who wanted rigid performances without all that motivation stuff, lines read exactly as written? Its possible that Night Tide demonstrated to Hopper that a small-budget, personal movie and a sympathetic director  - - rare from a studio until the 70’s - - was the only way he could feel artistically fulfilled. Sometimes it’s big trouble to get what you want too early in life.