betanslivka 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.

PimpinAinttEasy Dear J.Lee Thompson,you did make a superb film every once in a while in what was a patchy career. Tiger Bay is one of those superb films.It starts off as a sort of a film of place. I liked the English port town filled with a mix of native British and Polish and Caribbean immigrants. With everyone living cooped up together in small flats and narrow spaces.Then it turns into a man and girl on the run film. The chemistry between Hayley Mills and Horst Buchholz really worked. Hayley Mill's performance is probably among the top ten ever by a child artist. Her calm and cunning demeanor is a perfect foil for Buchholz' intensity.The film is also a great crime thriller. There were a lot of interesting twists. The final scenes kept me on the edge of my seat.I liked how you made the viewer care for the murderer. I was rooting for him in the end.Best Regards, Pimpin.(8/10)

Spikeopath Tiger Bay is directed by J. Lee Thompson and written by John Hawkesworth and Shelley Smith. It stars Horst Buchholz, Hayley Mills, John Mills, Megs Jenkins and Anthony Dawson. Music is by Laurie Johnson and cinematography by Eric Cross. A young girl witnesses a murder and complicates the investigation by becoming attached to the killer. The Lord's My Shepherd. Set in the Principality of Cardiff, South Wales, Tiger Bay is a boffo noir drama in the tradition of the excellent Charles Crichton/Dirk Bogarde picture, Hunted (1952). The core of the story is about the friendship that forms between a murderer and the child that saw him do it. There is nothing remotely risqué in this friendship, it's tender and pertinent given the absence of parents and kin in Gillie's (H. Mills) life (she lives with her Auntie played by Jenkins). Korchinsky (Buchholz) is not a madman psychopath, his crime was a moment of madness, a crime of passion, and he is very likable and therefore it's believable that young Gillie would take him for surrogate kinship. If you want to be happy and live a king's life, never make a pretty woman your wife. The drama comes from the investigation led by Superintendent Graham (J. Mills), who has to stay on top of things whilst being spun lots of yarns by the precocious Gillie. Things are further spiced up by the presence of another suspect played by Dawson, who is all jittery and suspicious, this is a very good splinter in the narrative, ensuring that the pic never relies on being just about a special/odd friendship. The writers also provide much intelligence as regards the era, with nods to sexual politics, the changing of attitudes with children, while there's a multi cultural background to the play. Pat on the back is deserved as well for incorporating a thread about the opposing laws of maritime and those of the land. Yes, I have, and a very brave man. The aged dockside locales keep things earthy, as does the run down and cramped housing arrangements, these allow Thompson & Cross to cover it with noirish tints, the dockside scenes (and the church interiors) are all shadows and shimmers, it really is gorgeous work, the black and white compositions perfectly lit. Cast are superb, has Buchholz - away from the iconography of The Magnificent Seven - ever been better than he is here? J. Mills is class, but then he almost always was, Dawson is quality old boy, but it's young Hayley's movie, a stupendous performance from one so young, it's easy to see why she would carve out a considerable career in acting. A little irk exists about the complete lack of any scene showing Gillie's Auntie being worried that her charge has gone missing, especially since there has been a murder in the block, but it's a small itch to scratch. Tiger Bay, smart, pretty and dramatic. 9/10

Terrell-4 For a movie that starts with a murder fueled by rage and ends with a dangerous decision to be made in rough seas, Tiger Bay is one of the most touching and endearing studies of childhood and friendship you could hope to see. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed. When a young Polish seaman named Korchinsky (Horst Buchholz) returns to his home port in Wales after a long spell at sea, he is the happiest man alive. He has some money in his pocket and a good-looking girlfriend. He can hardly wait to arrive at her apartment flat, which he has been paying the rent on. But he meets someone else living there. When he finally locates his girl, he finds she's been seeing someone else, a man she thinks has "class." It's the old story. She begins screaming at him. He loses his temper and screams back. She pulls a gun from a dresser drawer and orders him out of her apartment and out of her life. In a mater of seconds he's wrestled the gun away from her and she's lying dead on the floor of multiple bullet wounds. And while this has been going on, ten-year-old Gillie (Hayley Mills) has been crouched down and staring at what she could see through the mail slot in the door. Gillie is bright and quick. She lives with her aunt down the hall. She's good at making up stories, not lies, exactly, but close enough. Her friends won't play cops and robbers with her because she doesn't have a toy gun. She loves to imagine adventures. Korchinsky hears the police arriving. He hides the gun and then hides himself. As soon as he disappears, Gillie nips in and takes the gun from where she saw Korchinsky hide it. But now Korchinsky spots her. For the rest of the movie we follow Gillie as she avoids Korchinsky, as she shows off the gun to a friend during choir, and as Detective Superintendent Graham (John Mills) questions Gillie and the neighbors to try to make sense of the murder. It doesn't take long for Korchinsky to abduct Gillie with a tale of escaping on an adventure to another country. He knows she is the only one who can identify him. Gillie, her head full of excitement, is no dummy, but she longs for what she imagines. Korchinsky, in fact, turns out to be a young man over his head, almost as young in some ways as Gillie. He begins to see Gillie as the same kind of uncomplicated dreamer in some ways he is. While he convinces Gillie not to give him away, he leaves her for a few hours so he can sign on to a ship soon to sail for Caracas. When Gillie is found alone and waiting for Korchinsky to return, Superintendent Graham must try to convince Gillie that Korchinsky is dangerous and that she must corporate to capture him. Gillie, despite the best efforts of Graham, will not betray her friend. The cat and mouse struggle between Graham and Gillie is one of the most amusing situations in the movie. The climax is on the freighter bound for Caracas just outside the three mile zone off the coast of Wales. The inspector has arrived on a pilot boat with Gillie to identify Korchinsky. He is determined to bring Korchinsky in. Just when it looks like Korchinsky will be safe, Gillie falls overboard in the high seas. The only one who sees her fall is Korchinsky. If he lets her die unseen, he will remain on the ship and be safe as it heads away from Britain. If he dives in to try to save Gillie, he will be picked up by the pilot boat, even if he saves her, and returned to Wales, sooner or later to be tried for murder. It's his choice and he has only seconds to decide. This was Hayley Mills first movie. She was 13 and she is extraordinary. Buchholz and Mills (her father) do fine jobs, but the movie fails or succeeds on whether or not the person of Gillie captures us. We not only have to identify with Gillie, we have to believe in her. Mills makes Gillie a person we root for, a person we understand why she won't turn in her friend even after she realizes he won't be taking her anywhere. Mills does all this with straightforward and unaffected charm, and without a speck of sentimentality. But nothing is perfect in this world, and Tiger Bay is cursed with one of the most awful screen scores I've ever heard. It's not only loud, it's cloyingly sentimental with tons of lush strings. Worse, it punctuates every tense scene with cliché-ridden horn stings and drum beats. The score does a disservice to the movie.