Although Tiger Bay was the official debut of Hayley Mills, she was actually seen in another of her father's films So Well Remembered years earlier as an infant. I guess we should call Tiger Bay her conscious debut.
In Tiger Bay Hayley's a London slum kid who's a tomboy and likes nothing better than playing cowboys and Indians with the boys and their cap pistols which were as popular there as this side of the pond. She also gets a gun of her own, only it's a real one recently used to murder one of her neighbors.
The neighbor is Yvonne Mitchell who likes her gentleman callers. When Horst Buchholtz a Polish sailor returns on his merchant ship and finds her sleeping around he loses it and pumps several shots into Mitchell. Mills sees him do it, but she develops a curious relationship with Bucholtz and imagines him to be the one who will take her from her dreary slum life.
I read here that the original story and part was intended for a boy and it might make better sense had it been done that way. Tiger Bay comes very close to having Bucholtz be a child molester.
Saying that however Hayley Mills's talent is pretty clear and note how Walt Disney feminized her image a bit to get her the success she had as his child star meal ticket in the early 60s. Besides Bucholtz, Hayley's best scenes are with her father John Mills who plays the Scotland Yard man on the homicide case. She willfully misleads the police so much so that as an adult she'd be charged with obstruction.
Tiger Bay is a good film, but they should have made it with a boy protagonist.
In Tiger Bay Hayley's a London slum kid who's a tomboy and likes nothing better than playing cowboys and Indians with the boys and their cap pistols which were as popular there as this side of the pond. She also gets a gun of her own, only it's a real one recently used to murder one of her neighbors.
The neighbor is Yvonne Mitchell who likes her gentleman callers. When Horst Buchholtz a Polish sailor returns on his merchant ship and finds her sleeping around he loses it and pumps several shots into Mitchell. Mills sees him do it, but she develops a curious relationship with Bucholtz and imagines him to be the one who will take her from her dreary slum life.
I read here that the original story and part was intended for a boy and it might make better sense had it been done that way. Tiger Bay comes very close to having Bucholtz be a child molester.
Saying that however Hayley Mills's talent is pretty clear and note how Walt Disney feminized her image a bit to get her the success she had as his child star meal ticket in the early 60s. Besides Bucholtz, Hayley's best scenes are with her father John Mills who plays the Scotland Yard man on the homicide case. She willfully misleads the police so much so that as an adult she'd be charged with obstruction.
Tiger Bay is a good film, but they should have made it with a boy protagonist.