Transcript: Christian Film Noir Analysis: The Guilty & High Tide

Greetings, classic cinema and TV fans. This is Jason Lockhart, Pastor Jay, here with you once again, bringing you another Silver Screen Spotlight. And today we are talking about a brand spanking new release from Flickr Alley in association with the Film Noir Foundation and the UCLA Library, Film, and Television Archive. We're talking a double feature. I love double features. And double features of noir. Yes, please. So, so cool. We're talking a double feature. This is The Guilt and High Tide. Uh, really, really interesting, a little, uh, little double feature here because, um, this one is, uh, something special. Uh, this is, uh, from, uh, director John Reinhart and, uh, John Reinhart has really fell off of, um, most people's radar. And that is a shame because he was a, uh, a pretty interesting character, I shouldn't say character, director, but anyway, but he really was. He did a lot of really interesting films, and I definitely suggest searching out John Reinhardt and seeing all about him. He's really interesting, but here he directed two amazing releases, and And interestingly enough, in this, these both star Don Castle. Now, Don Castle is really somebody special and somebody interesting because if you look at Don Castle, you look at him, he actually almost looks, I won't say identical, but he could pass for Clark Gable pretty good. as you can see here, he really does. He has kind of a look of Clark Gable, doesn't he? I mean, not identical, but pretty good. Now, film noir is really an interesting thing. Film noir was a really really popular kind of entertainment and it was made dirt cheap Didn have big budgets but people in the 40s and the 50s just loved that film noir. Every time a film noir came out, people were clamoring to go check it out. And, you know, so they were made very cheap, but they got a lot of good money from those film wars because people really enjoyed going and watching the crime dramas and all the seediness and all that grittiness that came from film noir. And so it was pretty, pretty cool. And Don Castle starred in two of them with director John Reinhart, and we're talking The Guilty, and we're talking High Tide. Pretty, pretty interesting little releases. We're not going to go into great detail because we got a full written review of this release up at Classic Cinema Plus, and go check that out, and you can see all the details of it. But we do just want to kind of spotlight it a little bit briefly. The guilty is about two guys that are sharing an apartment and are going out with twins, right? And they're both played by the same lady. Well, there's one twin that is sweet and the other one is kind of not so sweet, shall we say. And what happens is the sweet twin sadly gets murdered. and the guy that was dating her is now accused of murdering her. And then it all plays out from there. Like I said, we're not going into great detail on this because we want you to watch the films. But then there's High Tide. And High Tide is about a private investigator who gets caught up in a war, if you will, between a crime syndicate boss and a newspaper editor. And so it's like he's right caught in the middle, and he doesn't want to be, and yet there he is, right? Both of these are really, really well done little pieces of film noir. They really are. They're very short. They're not real long. They're about an hour and 11 minutes each. So they were you can watch them in no time flat right You can watch both of them together And that kind of how they were meant to be of course is a double bill you know you can watch them Let face it you can watch both of these films in less the time you watch something like Avengers Infinity Wars let's be honest or any of the Marvel films now or the DC films because all of these films are getting like two and a half, three hours long, right? So you can watch both of these in less time than you can watch one of those films, right? And these are really, really good releases. They're thought-provoking. They're exciting. They really take you on a ride and it's really, really cool. Now, the interesting thing about this is the Film Noir Foundation and the UCLA Library, Film, and Television Archive have joined forces with Flickr Alley and brought these two amazing releases to Blu-ray and DVD combo pack. Now, the interesting thing is these have been restored from the original camera negatives, and they look stunningly spectacular. The quality of these two releases are just amazing. The audio sounds so crisp and clear. I mean, there's none. A lot of times you get this hiss with old releases. You don't get that with these. They're just crystal clear. And the picture quality, I mean, is so stunningly great. I mean, there's no real damage to the prints whatsoever. They're just, they look amazing. They really look good. They almost look like they could have been shot today. I mean, in this day and age. I mean, they're that amazingly good. As we said, there's Blu-ray and DVD both in this. There's also an amazing, thick, filled with all kinds of stuff, booklet that talks about the guilty and high tide. So that's pretty cool. And I like the way they did that, the way it's like here, and then you flip it, and it's like that. So you know exactly where you are. When you get to the end of one thing then you flip it and you start there and you know where you at right I think that pretty cool It subtle but it really really cool Love this artwork here This is pretty cool artwork. I love that kind of noir with just that hint of blue. I think that's pretty cool. But something else that Flicker Alley did that I think is even cooler is the inside cover. You get the poster art of these two films on the inside cover that is this. That is pretty cool. I'm telling you, Flicker Alley did an amazing job. Now, with two amazing restored film noirs, that's enough right there, right? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Flickr Alley went above and beyond and have put on here some amazing documentaries talking about the legacy of producer Jack Rayther, the amazing director, John Reinhart, Lee Tracy, who is in the second release, which is pretty, pretty cool. audio commentaries filled with all kinds of amazing things. And we get an introduction for The Guilty and High Tide from the author and film historian Eddie Muller, which is really, really cool. Just an amazing release. So definitely, if you have never seen this, definitely check it out. We do suggest going and checking out the full written review of The Guilty and High Tide on Blu-ray on Classic Cinema Plus. It is really an amazing release. If you love film noir, you have got to have this in your collection. It is that amazingly good. Definitely check it out. Be sure to go to Flickr Alley website and check them out and see all the amazing releases they have up there. And be sure to like, share, and subscribe. We would appreciate it. And until we see you next time with another Silver Screen Spotlight, this is Pastor Jay, Jason Locker, reminding you that if you want to see a great film, check out a classic, and we will see you next time.