TIGER BAY

TIGER BAY (1959) straddles two distinct movements in the history of the cinema. On the one hand, it's a first rate film noir, coming at the tail end of that cycle of films in both the United States and other countries. And on the other hand, it anticipates the rise of the British New Wave which launched a couple of years later with A TASTE OF HONEY (1961). 

Polish sailor home from the sea Bronislav Korchinsky (Horst Buchholz), expects to find his girlfriend Anya (Yvonne Mitchell), in his old rented flat. Instead, he finds a strange young woman. Bronek eventually finds the building where Anya lives but when he confronts her, she says she wants nothing to do with him. There is clear evidence in her flat that she has a new lover. The two quarrel, a gun is drawn and Bronek shoots Anya dead. 

Unknown to the panic stricken sailor, his crime was witnessed by Gillie (Hayley Mills), an orphaned tomboy who lives with her aunt in the same building. She desperately wants Bronek's gun because it would allow her to join in the games of "Cowboys and Indians" that the cap-gun toting neighbor boys engage in. 

Bronek eventually discovers Gillie and rather than kill her to keep her quiet, the two develop an oddly mutual relationship. She sees the troubled young man as a potential father figure while he relishes the unconditional love the mixed up pre-teen offers him. Gillie longs to go with Bronek when he returns to the sea but Bronek wants only to hire on to a ship and sail past the three mile limit where he can't be arrested by British authorities. 

Those authorities are embodied in Police Superintendent Graham (John Mills, real-life father of Hayley). He's doggedly investigating the murder of Anya, a case in which all fingers point to Barclay (Anthony Dawson), the married lover of the dead woman. It was Barclay's gun that was in Anya's flat and Gillie circles the noose a notch tighter when she identities Barclay in a police lineup and gives a blow by blow description of what she saw when she peeked through the mail slot. 

  But a slip up on Gillie's part causes Graham to pivot and go after Bronek, who is already on a Venezuelan freighter headed for international waters. There's a tense climactic showdown at sea before all is resolved. 

Many of the exteriors in TIGER BAY were filmed on location by cinematographer Eric Cross in the actual Tiger Bay district of Cardiff on the English coast. The scenes of street life, the workings of the docks and real pubs, give the film a vibrant and unusual locale.

The entire cast of TIGER BAY is first rate and director J. Lee Thompson does a terrific job in telling a tense crime drama melded with the offbeat but touching relationship between the sailor and the misfit young girl. 

What's equally interesting about TIGER BAY is what happened next to many of the people involved in the production. Young Hayley Mills was spotted by the Walt Disney Studios and cast in POLLYANNA (1960), the first of many films she made for the studio. Mills became a huge star in the '60s thanks to her Disney films.  

Composer Laurie Johnson continued to write music for British films and television series but is perhaps best remembered for the theme to THE AVENGERS, the popular British spy show of the '60s. 

Horst Buchholz went on to play one of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960). He, along with Brad Dexter, are the two team members that everyone consistently forgets. 

Anthony Dawson played a henchman to the title villain in DR. NO (1962), the first James Bond film. 

And director J. Lee Thompson went on to make two great films in the early '60s, THE GUNS OF NAVARRONE (1961) and CAPE FEAR (1962). In addition, Thompson directed the epic Western MCKENNA'S GOLD (1969), two of the original Planet of the Apes films, CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (1972) and BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973) and several film starring action icon Charles Bronson including ST. IVES (1976), THE WHITE BUFFALO (1977), 10 TO MIDNIGHT (1983) and THE EVIL THAT MEN DO (1984). 

TIGER BAY is a first rate, compelling little British crime drama that I was unaware of until it ran on TCM recently. I'm glad I took the time to check it out. 

Thumbs up.