Between the Tides

Between the Tides is a 1958 short documentary directed by Ralph Keene for British Transport Films.It is a study of the animal and plant life of Britain's shores. The film show the fascinating and colourful marine life of shoreline and rock pool, filmed in the inter-tidal zone of a typical and attractive rocky shore of southwest England. The amazing diversity of creatures must be seen to be believed; periwinkles, top-shells, starfish and lump suckers, the self-concealing flatfish, the gaper and razor fish and the commuting and breeding seabirds. Beautifully photographed in glorious Technicolor by resident cameraman Ron Craigen, the film was awarded fifteen international film honours, and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

British actor Stephen Murray creatively narrates this rather interesting short glimpse of the huge variety of life that exists on the beaches and in the rocks that surround the United Kingdom. Limpets, barnacles, whelks and sponges all cling to surfaces as the anemones, prawns, crabs and fish run the gauntlet of the eat and be eaten routine that constitutes daily life. The lobster - "a blue somnambulist perambulating on stilts" mixes with an whole slew of shellfish that seem to defy the laws of physics and gravity as they filter food from the seeming nothingness of the salty water. Then there's the weed - a great expanse of leaves and tendrils. Gulls and oystercatchers scavenge the sands looking for hermit crabs or razor clams that using the most innovative of periscope arrangements to see, breathe and - they hope - survive. Not all do survive - the birds must eat too, of course, and the shells provide little protection against the power of the beaks. On land, flowers grow - sea campion and pennywort are common amongst the nesting kittiwakes, gannets and herring gulls perched precariously for added protection for their eggs from scavengers and other, hungry, predators. The natural history photography here paints quite an intimate portrait. We see the chicks hatch, take their first steps, the birds feeding just as the fish and those other creatures under the water like the octopuses and blowfish, do too. Long before anyone had drones, this camerawork impressively and patiently follows the airborne antics of the puffins which look clumsy on land but glide effortlessly through the air just as those cumbersome on the sand make the water their home. Well worth a watch, this - and nicely illustrative of just what is going on around us as we paddle in the sea.