The Raging Tide (1951)

Choppy Waters.

The Raging Tide is directed by George Sherman and adapted to screenplay by Ernest K. Gann from his own novel Fiddler’s Green. It stars Shelley Winters, Richard Conte, Stephen McNally, Charles Bickford, John McIntire and Alex Nicol. Music is by Frank Skinner and cinematography by Russell Metty.

Hoodlum Bruno Felkin (Conte) hides out on the Linder family fishing boat to avoid the cops. They affect his life as much as he affects theirs…

It’s got a stellar noir cast and quality in the music and photography departments, but there’s nothing raging about this soggy piece of drama. Conte is watchable as a thug, no surprise there, but the screenplay does him and everyone else few favours. Only one to come out on top of the writing is Winters, who revels in cutting remarks delivered via a serpent tongue. Bickford is trying to be Swedish, giving Sterling Hayden in Terror in a Texas Town a run for his money for worst Swede accent ever. While McIntire and McNally earn their wages.

Little to recommend outside of the cast list here I’m sad to say. 5/10

This is quite an engaging story that sees gangster "Bruno Felkin" (Richard Conte) cleverly devise an alibi by seeking refuge on the small fishing boat of "Linder" (Charles Bickford) after he has carefully bumped off a San Francisco rival. The crew consists of the father and his rather recalcitrant son "Carl" (Alex Nicol), with the latter only there under duress. "Bruno" starts to bond with the old man; his ideals and principles appeal. When they eventually get back to shore, "Carl" is given a $200 a week job as his new enforcer and also tasked with being an intermediary between him and his girlfriend "Connie" (Shelley Winters) to whom the young man takes rather a shine. She, meantime, is being harangued by the police to betray him. The plot isn't so much about his nefarious activities, more of the relationships between the father and son, and of the three men in general as "Bruno" continues to fish with them - sometimes in some fairly hostile weather conditions - and their relationships somehow become more honest and enduring. Sadly, the production standards are pretty low - the backdrop is particularly dodgy onboard the boat (at times they appear to be travelling at around 25 knots), but the narrative is enjoyable to watch enfold and it has a little more to it than the formulaic gangster and his moll style film.