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Night Tide

A sailor on shore leave meets a woman who works as “Mora the Mermaid” in a Santa Monica sideshow — and she is not sure she is only playing the part. Curtis Harrington’s 1961 debut feature is a fog-and-jazz mood piece: Dennis Hopper, young and unmarked, falls for Linda Lawson’s carnival siren while two previous boyfriends have already drowned. Marjorie Cameron, the occult artist, glides through as a figure from the sea. Harrington, later the director of What’s the Matter with Helen? and a friend of the underground, shoots the pier like a dream of Cat People. Cheap, lyrical, and restored by the Academy, it is the rare American independent that feels like a poem someone found in a bottle.

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