Floodtide

David (Gordon Jackson) is the son of a farmer who dreams of building ships on the Clyde. Against his father's wishes he takes a job in the shipyards and begins his meteoric rise through the ranks. Along the way he meets Mary, the boss's daughter. He likes the cut of her jib, if not the shape of her stern (of her yacht, ya daftie), but before love can blossom he must first overcome the old-fashioned ideas of his colleagues to build his revolutionary ship, and also escape the clutches of Judie, a Barrowlands haunting hussy.

The pleasure of Floodtide (1949) lies not in its rather underdeveloped and underpowered story, but in its portrait of a time when the Clyde was the centre of the shipbuilding world, and a place that attracted the best and the brightest. Although mostly studio bound, there is an enjoyable authenticity to its dialogue and its depiction of life in the shipyards and tenements of post-war Glasgow. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]