Tiger Bay seems to be a pastiche of two earlier British movies, Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol (1948) and Charles Crichton's Hunted (1952). It's clearly below their standard, they already have said it all, and said it better, what can be said about children who feel lonely, are attracted to strange men" and find themselves burdened with responsibilities too heavy for a child. So Tiger Bay appears to have been made mainly for the purpose of launching the career of child actress Hayley Mills. She plays a wild tomboy of a girl that can be cute but is often just plain nasty or annoying. She is introduced to the audience as she is tripping up a boy who is running past, without apparent reason. She is given more screen time than would have been necessary and overacts the way children do when they are provoked and heated up". German heartthrob Horst Buchholz plays the strange man". Frankly, he is no match for either Ralph Richardson or Dirk Bogarde who played the part in the afore mentioned movies.
Weird detail. The adults all wear pullovers or heavy coats. Their breath steams which indicates that it must be pretty cold. Yet Hailey Mills at all times has nothing on but a thin, short sleeved T-shirt. None of the adults offer her an additional garment so that she keeps warm. This may have been intentional to show the alienation or the cruelty of the adult world, I found it just unnecessarily unkind and also distracting as I seriously started to worry about the child's health.
I can warmly recommend Tiger Bay to people who are interested in movie presentations of specific townscapes. In this aspect it is a great movie with a lot of outdoor scenes, not unlike On the Waterfront, in fact. Tiger Bay was a real place, in the town of Cardiff, capital of Wales, Great Britain. It took me three clicks in the internet what a great invention! to find out about the location. Here is what www.bbc.co.uk says: Tiger Bay was notorious. A slice of red-light district and gambling dens between Cardiff's city centre and its docks, and home to a rich mix of multi-racial communities (singer Shirley Bassey came from here), it had a powerful character of its own. Its rundown terraces, pubs and shops were demolished in the late 1960s, and now restaurants and sought-after executive flats stand in its place (unquote). In the movie an amazing amount of attention is given to the multi racial aspect. The children who roam the neighbourhood are of different ethnic backgrounds and seem to mingle freely. Hayley Mill's character sings in the racially mixed church choir while a wedding of Caribbeans is performed. Later, in the dark of the night, she and Buchholz watch from afar the Caribbean wedding party from a distance, with Calypso songs and the sound of a small steel band. It is the most beautiful scene of the whole, very well photographed movie.
Weird detail. The adults all wear pullovers or heavy coats. Their breath steams which indicates that it must be pretty cold. Yet Hailey Mills at all times has nothing on but a thin, short sleeved T-shirt. None of the adults offer her an additional garment so that she keeps warm. This may have been intentional to show the alienation or the cruelty of the adult world, I found it just unnecessarily unkind and also distracting as I seriously started to worry about the child's health.
I can warmly recommend Tiger Bay to people who are interested in movie presentations of specific townscapes. In this aspect it is a great movie with a lot of outdoor scenes, not unlike On the Waterfront, in fact. Tiger Bay was a real place, in the town of Cardiff, capital of Wales, Great Britain. It took me three clicks in the internet what a great invention! to find out about the location. Here is what www.bbc.co.uk says: Tiger Bay was notorious. A slice of red-light district and gambling dens between Cardiff's city centre and its docks, and home to a rich mix of multi-racial communities (singer Shirley Bassey came from here), it had a powerful character of its own. Its rundown terraces, pubs and shops were demolished in the late 1960s, and now restaurants and sought-after executive flats stand in its place (unquote). In the movie an amazing amount of attention is given to the multi racial aspect. The children who roam the neighbourhood are of different ethnic backgrounds and seem to mingle freely. Hayley Mill's character sings in the racially mixed church choir while a wedding of Caribbeans is performed. Later, in the dark of the night, she and Buchholz watch from afar the Caribbean wedding party from a distance, with Calypso songs and the sound of a small steel band. It is the most beautiful scene of the whole, very well photographed movie.