Tiger Bay

Tiger Bay (1959)

MURDER...enacted before the eyes of a little girl. She alone has the proof the police are searching for.

In Tiger Bay, the docklands of Cardiff, street urchin Gillie witnesses the brutal murder of a young woman. Instead of reporting the crime, she merely pockets a prize for herself — the perpetrator's shiny black revolver — and flees. When Detective Graham discovers that Gillie has the murder weapon, the fiery young girl weaves a web of lies to throw him off course.

Date of release
1959-03-01
TMDB
7.2 / 10 (58)
Runtime
1h 45m
Genres
Thriller, Crime
Director
J. Lee Thompson

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Pinewood Studios

Tiger Bay is a 1959 British crime drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson. It stars John Mills as a police superintendent investigating a murder; his real-life daughter Hayley Mills, in her first major film role, as a girl who witnesses the murder; and Horst Buchholz as a young sailor who commits the murder in a moment of passion. The title refers to the Tiger Bay district of Cardiff, where much of the film was shot.

Production

The film was based on a short story Rodolphe et le Revolver by French writer Noël Calef. In the story the witness to the murder was a young boy. Director J. Lee Thompson originally intended to film it that way and in August 1958 sent a copy of the script to John Mills, with whom he had worked on Ice Cold in Alex and wanted to play the part of the detective.

The role of the boy was originally offered to Colin Petersen who had been in Smiley. However his parents wanted to return to Australia so they rejected the role.

Thompson went to Mills's house in Sussex to discuss the project and wound up talking to Mills's daughter Hayley. After lunch he told Mills that he wanted to change the role of the boy to a girl and cast Hayley in the part as "the whole story will be much more moving and touching in every way." Although Hayley had not expressed that much interest in acting, John Mills and his wife agreed. Thompson decided to cast her even without testing.

The role of male lead went to Horst Buchholz. Several movies financed by Rank had German stars around this time in an attempt to appeal to the German market.

Filming started 15 September 1958. The film was shot mostly on location in the Tiger Bay district of Cardiff, at Newport Transporter Bridge in Newport (12 miles/19 km from Cardiff) and at Avonmouth Docks in Bristol. Other scenes were shot at Beaconsfield Studios.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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