Tiger Bay

Tiger Bay is a 1959 British crime drama film based on the short story "Rodolphe et le Revolver" by Noël Calef. It was directed by J. Lee Thompson, produced by John Hawkesworth, and co-written by John Hawkesworth and Shelley Smith (pseudonym of Nancy Hermione Bodington). 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 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. It features many authentic scenes of the children's street culture and the black street culture of the time, along with many dockside shots and scenes in real pubs and the surrounding countryside. It marks a vital transitional moment in the move towards the British New Wave cinema exemplified a few years later by A Taste of Honey. Unusually the overall ambience is one of sympathy towards the killer, seeing him as a basically good person, and victim of circumstance. Plot A young Polish sailor Bronislav ("Bronek") Korchinsky (Horst Buchholz) arrives in Cardiff, planning to propose to his girlfriend Anya (Yvonne Mitchell). However, he discovers Anya gone and someone else living in the flat. The landlord reveals that Anya left several weeks ago and owes back rent, even though Bronek was sending monthly payments to her. Bronek pays Anya's debts so that the landlord will give him her new address.