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)

Johan Louwet Rating this movie was not an easy thing to do. Giving it 9/10 might sound a bit crazy for a movie with a pretty straightforward story like this. However it's mainly the extraordinary performance of 12 year old Hayley Mills as Gillie that eventually decided to go 1 higher than I initially intended to give. The chemistry between her and Horst Buchholz as Polish sailor Bronic was amazing. The role of superintendent Graham was played by Hayley's father who might or might not have anything to do with the introduction of his daughter to the movie world. Whatever it is I'm grateful it happened as later on Hayley would put on other awesome performances in both drama and family movies. For me she is one of those actresses that can take a movie to a higher level. In this movie I didn't have the feeling those were father and daughter in real. Same can be said for The Chalk Garden in which John Mills plays the butler. Tiger Bay works wonderfully in black and white, adds to the atmosphere. It has great settings with the haven, boats, streets and apartments having an authentic look truthful to its time.

Robert J. Maxwell 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.

spotlightne I was disappointed when I watched this film again.I saw it when I was a kid but it doesn't stand up to the test of time.The relationship between the killer and the girl just wouldn't work now in modern cinema.In this their friendship is innocent (no pun intended), but I am sure if this film was remade, Hollywood would put a much sinister slant on it. It's unavoidable in a way. She's 11 and he's early 20s.The film drags on far too much, and when all is said and done there isn't much of a story. It's a disjointed film, uneven and boring in parts.I didn't like it much and couldn't wait for it to end. The bleak surroundings and black and white print didn't help much.The acting is average. The ending unsurprising. Just 4/10.