Tiger Bay (1959)

Any time I see a movie or show with Halley Mills, my thoughts immediately go back to this movie. I saw it a long, long time ago, but the impact of her performance never fades. Other reviewers have summarized the story, so I will not bother. I simply want to be counted among those who feel this film is worth any trouble you may have to go through to find and watch it.

Tiger Bay is directed by J. Lee Thompson, is based on the short story by Noel Calef, has a screenplay by John Hawksworth and Shelley Smith and stars Hayley Mills, Horst Buchholz and John Mills.Korchinsky(Horst Buchholz)is a Polish sailor home on leave. When he goes to his girlfriends flat he discovers she is cheating on him . In a heated argument he shoots her dead. Gillie(Hayley Mills)is a young girl who lives in the same building, hearing the argument she peeks through the girlfriends letterbox and witnesses the murder. When Korchinsky discovers she was a witness he follows her to a local church where she sings in the choir. She sees him and runs to the attic to hide. He quizzes her to find out what she knows and when she admits to seeing everything he takes her on the run with him.On their trail is Superintendent Graham (John Mills)who will stop at nothing to find them. As they go on the run Korchinsky and Gillie become friends and actually begin to care for one another a great deal. Gillie doesn't want to leave him and doesn't want anything to happen to him.This is a first rate thriller with Buchholz giving an incredible performance as the desperate sailor. He portrays this mans desperation and inner gentleness perfectly and despite his crime he is far from a bad man.This is Hayley's screen debut and she is excellent, you would never guess that this was her first time on screen. She and Buchholz have a lovely chemistry and you believe their growing friendship. Hayley also does a good job of acting alongside her father John Mills, the scene where he questions her about the murder she saw is very funny as Gillie is so evasive to his questions, there's lots of dialogue in that scene and Hayley manages quite well. They are also very good together in the scene in the car where workmen block their path to the docks and she keeps saying she's unwell or she's hurt herself to try and delay the Inspector.This is a moving story as well as an excellent thriller. It has many similarities to the 1952 film Hunted starring Dirk Bogarde and if you like Tiger Bay take a look at that one too.

Hayley Mills is really a piece of work in this film, a brazen tomboy caught in mid growth-spurt, unshaken by any circumstance. Her boyishness, even with her short hair and unisex jeans, is thoroughly undermined by her feminine features. Her blue eyes are doll-like, her eyelashes pale. Her plump lower lip has to be seen to be believed -- or rather witnessed, since whenever Mills is concentrating or squinting, it assumes idiosyncratic and sometimes frankly sensuous configurations. It's no wonder she became a Disney favorite.She's cute as hell and a good little actress too. She outshines Horst Buchholtz in some of their scenes together. As an illustration of her natural talent, watch her being interrogated by a policeman, John Mills, her father. He tells her to sit in a chair and answer his questions. She sits. He asks her questions, slowly, one at a time, but she never immediately answers because she's improvising the description of the murderer as the interview stumbles along. And, between answers, the director, J. Lee Thompson, allows her time to send her face through all sorts of spasms and contortions without ever quite overdoing it. It's an utterly charming performance -- and this is a thriller about a murderer and his diminutive confidante.Buchholtz is a Polish sailor who shoots his girlfriend to death during a fierce argument. Mills spots him and he traps her in a church attic. He can't very well kill the gangly kid, and they get to know one another. Buchholz winds up praying.That's not as bad as it sounds. It's not that kind of movie. Mills' attempts to protect Buchholz from the police are mostly comic. The climactic scene aboard a Venezuelan freighter has him giving up his freedom to save Mills' life, but that's not as bad as it sounds either.Beneath the comedy and suspense lies an interesting question about lying, sometimes called "the brother's dilemma" in psychology. What circumstances -- what features of a relationship -- justify lying to save someone else's hide? This script brings the police, the murderer, and Mills together in a final confrontation. Should she continue to lie in order for him to escape? The usual moral scenario would have her break down and confess to the police, with Buchholz carted away, a sneer on his face. But that's not what happens here.J. Lee Thompson, the director, made a couple of good, rip-roaring movies, including "Cape Fear", "The Guns of Navarone", "Ice Cold in Alex," but was more of an efficient technician than an artist. Yet he handles most of these scenes with an unexpected delicacy. Unfortunately the lighting of the first half of the film is stark and noir-like, dampening the emotional effect of the developing friendship.What we see of Cardiff, Wales, is pretty dismal -- all cold bricks and dripping water, much as I remember it from the train. It's as ugly and poor as where I grew up, and only slightly less dangerous. The movie itself is a bit too long for the material, and the director makes too much use of close ups, especially of Buchholz's shayna punim and Mill's unspoiled freshness.I have to go back to the scene in which Mills' Daddy is trying to squeeze the truth out of her about the appearance of the murderer, while she sits in the chair and grimaces. Was the murderer fair? "Fairish." Was he fat? "Fattish." Was he tall? "Tallish." I saw it tonight for the first time since its release and it still strikes me as hilarious.

A precocious young tomboy with a gift for mischief finds more than her usual trouble when she witnesses a murder and later befriends the killer: a lonely Polish sailor on English shore leave. Both are misfits on the Cardiff docks, he because of his crime and nationality, she by her willful streak of independence, and their relationship is only one of the surprises in this tense, often touching suspense drama. The script succeeds in the near impossible task of maintaining sympathy for every character: the reluctant fugitive, the single-minded detectives hot on his trail, and above all for young Hayley Mills, who in her first major role steals the film playing the sassy, resourceful heroine. The most memorable scene shows her singing God's praise in a church choir, while surreptitiously showing off the murderer's gun to an envious friend.