Tiger Bay – 1959 | 105 mins | Thriller, Crime | B&W

Plot Synopsis

John Mills co-stars with his daughter Hayley in this vintage British thriller about the unlikely friendship between a violent criminal Horst Buchholz and a 12-year-old girl. In the original novel by Noël Calef, Gillie was a boy but director J. Lee Thompson switched the character’s gender after spotting Hayley during a visit to her father.

Korchinsky (Horst Buchholz), a Polish sailor, visits his girlfriend Anya (Yvonne Mitchell), while on shore leave in Cardiff’s dockland area of Tiger Bay. On his arrival, he is enraged to find that Anya is now living with another man and an argument develops between them resulting in the jealous seaman killing his ex-girlfriend. The murder is observed by a 12-year-old girl called Gillie (Hayley Mills); she lives in an upstairs flat with her Aunt and witnesses the quarrel while spying through a letterbox. Gillie gets hold of the abandoned gun, convinced the weapon will make her more popular when playing ‘Cowboys and Indians’ with the other children in town.

Superintendent Graham (John Mills), investigates the crime and is told a convincing string of lies by Gillie when he enquires how she acquired the gun. Eventually Korchinsky catches up with Gillie and kidnaps her, hoping to keep her quiet until he can leave the country. An unlikely friendship blossoms between the two while in hiding, and Gillie offers to help him escape. After he leaves, Gillie is once more under scrutiny from Graham, who takes her aboard the ship on which Korchinsky has signed. Graham hopes to catch the killer before he flees the country, but Gillie will not go against her friend and refuses to identify him. Korchinsky appears to be home free, but, when Gillie falls off the ship, the Polish seaman dives in the water to save his friend from a watery grave. In doing so, he reveals himself to the authorities and is arrested for Anya’s murder.