Endless Night (1972)

Endless Night is a 1972 British thriller written and directed by Sidney Gilliat and with an intriguing cast headed by Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett and Britt Ekland.

Gilliat and Frank Launder had been an immensely successful writing, directing and producing team (they wrote The Lady Vanishes for Alfred Hitchcock).

The movie is based on a 1967 Agatha Christie thriller. Yes, this is an actual thriller. Agatha Christie did write several thrillers and Endless Night was the best of them. It was her last truly great book.

Mike Rogers is a rental car driver although that is just the latest in a series of jobs. Mike is a very nice young man but he’s a bit of a dreamer. Mike has a fantasy - to build his dream house overlooking the sea. He has already chosen the spot, known as Gypsy’s Acre. The land would cost a lot of money, the house would cost a fortune and Mike is penniless. It’s just a dream.

Doing a driving job on the Continent he meets the renowned architect Rudolf Santonix (Per Oscarsson). Santonix is only in early middle age but he is running out of time. He has severe health problems and may only have a few years left. Mike shows him photos of the site at Gypsy’s Acre. It becomes a kind of dream for Santonix as well. This is a site worthy of him. He could design a house for that site, a house that would be his final masterpiece. But since such a house would be immensely expensive and Mike has no money it’s just a dream.

And then Mike meets a cute American girl, Ellie Thomsen (Hayley Mills). They take a shine to each other. What Mike doesn’t know is that Ellie is one of the richest women in the world.

It can’t possibly work out. Penniless hire car drivers like Mike don’t marry fabulously rich heiresses. But they do get married.

That’s when the plot twists start to kick in and the atmosphere becomes increasingly foreboding, and will soon become sinister. We know something bad is going to happen but we don’t know what it will be.

There are lots of potentially sinister characters. There’s the weird old woman muttering stuff about doom. There’s Greta (Britt Ekland). She’s Ellie’s best friend and was formerly her paid companion. Everyone warns Mike about Greta. There’s Ellie’s family, and a nasty money-grubbing snobbish bunch they are. Reuben (Peter Bowles) is married to Ellie’s aunt and he’s clearly a bad ’un. There’s Ellie’s aunt Cora (Lois Maxwell) who oozes spitefulness. There’s also the family lawyer, Andrew Lippincott (George Sanders). He’s charming but he’s a lawyer and much too clever to be trustworthy.

Both Mike and Ellie are dreamers. Santonix is a dreamer. The film has a slight fairy-tale vibe (and Ellie describes herself several times as Cinderella). My feeling is that you’ll appreciate this movie more if you think of it as having a subtle fairy tale quality. Ellie is the beautiful princess. Mike is the handsome but penniless coachman who wins her heart. The house is an enchanted castle, created by the wizard Santonix. Greta is a witch (the beautiful glamorous witches are the ones you have to watch out for). She might be a good witch or a bad witch. The crazy old lady could also be a good witch or a bad witch. Reuben is the adventurer who hoped to marry the princess. Cora is the evil stepmother. Andrew Lippincott is the old king’s courtier who might want the throne himself.

I have no idea if Gilliat had any of this in mind but there is a faint whiff of unreality to this movie. A slight storybook feel. It’s a long long way from fashionable 70s gritty realism. In fact the overall feel reminds me a little of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) which also has that ambiguity, that sense of being not quite reality. This is a movie that has more of a 1940s or 1950s feel than an early 70s feel. Although it does have a slight affinity with Roddy McDowall’s extraordinary The Ballad of Tam Lin (1970).

While these people live in a futuristic modernist house there are constant evocations of the past such as Mike’s love of beautiful old things, and the fact that Ellie is a singer but she sings 18th century songs. There are also subtle little otherwordly hints - when we first see Ellie she looks like a fairy dancing in a field, there’s the way the old lady keeps just appearing from nowhere. These are very subtle hints but to me they reinforce the idea that reality might not be all it seems to be.

There’s also a subtle dream-like quality to this movie. Again it’s a very slight undermining of reality.

This is a deceptive movie. It’s much smarter and more complex than it initially appears to be but you don’t know how smart it is until the end. It was promoted as an ingenious whodunit, which it isn’t. The mystery plot is very simple, very straightforward and very obvious. The mystery plot is not the point of the movie but you don’t know that until the end.

Hywel Bennett is outstanding. There were certain roles that he just did better than anyone else could have done. This is one of those roles. Hayley Mills is very good although she has a less showy part. Britt Ekland is very good indeed. This movie is stacked with fine British character actors and they’re all good.

Endless Night is intriguing, stylish, enigmatic and clever. Highly recommended.

And it looks great on Blu-Ray.

Take a Girl Like You (1970)

Take a Girl Like You, based on Kingsley Amis’s famous novel of the same name, was directed by Jonathan Miller. It came out in 1970.

Jenny Bunn (Hayley Mills) is a young school teacher from the north of England where she has had an upbringing of a very traditional nature. She moves into the home of local politician Dick Thompson (John Bird) and his wife Martha (Sheila Hancock). They have two female lodgers, the other being Anna (Geraldine Sherman).

It’s not long before Jenny meets Patrick Standish (Oliver Reed), a lecturer in the local technical college. Patrick is a notorious ladies’ man. Anna was one of his previous conquests. He intends to make Jenny his next conquest.

There should be no problem. Jenny obviously likes him. The chemistry is there between them. There is however an impediment. Jenny is a virgin. She’s not just a virgin. For Jenny it’s not so much a choice as a vocation. No amount of persuasion will change her mind. She can’t really explain why she’s so determined.

It’s all rather exasperating to Patrick. On the other hand, despite his womanising, he’s a basically decent guy. He certainly has no desire to force himself on an unwilling woman. He’ll use plenty of plausible persuasion but he’s not a man to take things any further.

Patrick and Jenny make the acquaintance of Julian Ormerod (Noel Harrison), a very rich very idle upper-class chap who lives in a palatial home and devotes himself to pleasure. Being very rich and very upper-class he is of course a socialist (there is some gentle satire in both Amis’s novel and the film).

Patrick is also introduced to Julian’s current mistress, Wendy (Aimi MacDonald), a ditzy blonde minor TV personality with no sexual inhibitions at all. Wendy thinks Patrick is rather a dish.

Jenny won’t sleep with Patrick but she certainly doesn’t intend to let another woman have him. Jenny is kind of sort of in love with Patrick although she’s reluctant to admit it to herself.

Patrick lays siege to Jenny’s fiercely defended virginity. They have no idea that they might actually fall in love but of course they do, and they both end up having to rethink their attitudes towards both sex and love.

You do have to remember that Kingsley Amis’s novel was written in 1960. The Sexual Revolution had not yet gathered any momentum at all. By 1970 it was in full swing. So by 1970 Jenny’s obsession with virginity would have seemed perhaps less plausible than would have been the case a decade earlier.

At this stage the career of Hayley Mills was thriving and she seemed to be making a very successful transition to grown-up roles. Sadly, as the 70s progressed her career lost momentum. She was always equally adept at serious and comic roles and she’s excellent in this movie, managing to avoid making Jenny seem too prissy or too much of a calculating tease. Whether or not we agree with Jenny’s obsessive defence of her virtue we can’t help liking her.

This is a slightly unusual role for Oliver Reed but he did have a greater range as an actor than he’s usually given credit for, and he could project a great deal of charm. Like Hayley Mills he has a slightly tricky role here. Patrick is a bit of a lad but despite his inveterate womanising he has a certain basic decency. Reed is likeable and amusing here.

Noel Harrison was a very underrated actor and gives a typically charming performance as Julian, a thoroughly pleasant man with no morals whatsoever.

Sheila Hancock is also somewhat underrated and she’s very good as well. Aimi MacDonald is amusing as the vapid Wendy. The whole cast is good. Look out for Penelope Keith in a very small very early role.

All of the characters have some depth. Their motivations and emotions are often beset with contradictions and they don’t always understand their own feelings.

This was the only feature film directed by Jonathan Miller, an extraordinary figure in the late 20th century British cultural scene - he directed plays and operas, he was a writer and TV presenter and a humourist.

Take a Girl Like You is not a conventional romantic comedy but it is a comedy about romance. It’s not a sex comedy but it is a comedy about sex. While the British at that time certainly had a taste for broad comedy Take a Girl Like You is very different - it’s witty and sophisticated.

This was a time when British film-makers were starting to explore a topic that had always terrified them - sex. There was a keen desire to make movies that took an honest grown-up approach to the subject. The absurdly strict British film censorship was finally starting to loosen up just a little. Towards the close of the 60s there were countless British films tackling this subject, some of them doing so with surprising success. There were also quite a few British coming-of-age movies made around this time. In fact Hayley Mills had starred in one of the best of these, Sky West and Crooked, in 1966. The better British movies of this era dealing with sex include Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1968), Baby Love (1969), I Start Counting (1969), Cool It, Carol! (1970), Age of Consent (1969), All the Right Noises (1970)

Take a Girl Like You is an offbeat mix but it has an infectious and enjoyable quirkiness. There is real chemistry between Hayley Mills and Oliver Reed which helps a great deal. Highly recommended.

The Powerhouse Indicator Blu-Ray presentation is excellent. There are a few extras including an interview with Hayley Mills (interestingly enough she has fond memories of working with Oliver Reed).

Sky West and Crooked (1966) revisited

Sky West and Crooked is a movie I’ve seen quite a few times and I reviewed it here years ago. It’s a movie that strikes me slightly differently each time I see it but it always entrances me. It was released in the US under the misleading but undoubtedly more commercial title Gypsy Girl.

This was very much a Mills family project. Sir John Mills was the director (this is the only film he directed). His wife Mary Hayley Bell wrote the original story and co-wrote the screenplay. Their daughter Hayley Mills is the star.

This was a transitional movie for Hayley Mills. She was eighteen at the time and although she had certainly made grown-up movies before this this was her first really grown-up role as an actress. Or, almost grown-up. This is (among other things) a coming-of-age movie and the character she plays, Brydie White, is a seventeen-year-old girl who is a young woman but emotionally still in many ways a child.

It’s one of several movies in which Hayley Mills played girls who were either troubled or a little odd. I don’t think any other actress has ever handled such roles so skilfully.

Brydie lives in a small rather sleepy English village. There’s a reason she’s odd and that reason is explained to us in a kind of prologue. Two small children, a boy and a girl, are playing. There’s an accident and the boy is killed. We know that it was purely an accident but nobody in the village knows the exact circumstances. The girl was Brydie. She has no memory of the accident but it left her with some emotional disturbance. The consensus in the village is that she’s all sky west and crooked which is apparently a term that was at one time used in some parts of England to describe someone who is a bit touched in the head.

Opinions in the village are divided. Most people think Brydie is strange but perfectly harmless but there are others who seem to think that one day she’ll turn into an axe murderess or that she’ll come to a bad end in some other way.

Brydie is obsessed with death. She is obsessed with graveyards. She’s managed to communicate her obsession to the village children.

Her mother has no idea how to handle her and takes solace in the bottle.


Brydie is growing up and there are men in the village who are starting to notice that she’s becoming an attractive young woman. One of the men who has noticed is a young gypsy, Roibin (Ian McShane). It’s obvious that there is a strong mutual attraction between Roibin and Brydie and it’s obvious (to the horror of some of the villagers) that the attraction on both sides is strongly sexual. It’s clearly destined to be a love that is going to encounter some major obstacles.

This movie shares a lot of thematic elements with an earlier Hayley Mills movie, Whistle Down the Wind. That’s no accident. Both movies are based on stories by Mary Hayley Bell. Both movies deal in an oblique but interesting way with religious questions. I don’t think either movie could be described as a Christian movie and to be honest I’m not even entirely sure whether Mary Hayley Bell was a believer. But she was certainly interested in religious questions. In Whistle Down the Wind she explores themes of salvation and redemption while Sky West and Crooked deals with death, and the ways in which people deal with death. Both movies are perhaps more about the nature of belief than about religion as such.

There is however much more to Sky West and Crooked. There’s also a love story, and a very good one. There is the coming-of-age angle. Going from being a child to being a woman is hard enough for any girl but for Brydie it’s even harder.

It’s also a movie that to some extent deals with the way people who are seen as outsiders are treated. Roibin is a gypsy, Brydie is slightly mad, so they’re both outsiders. But there’s no strident social or political messaging in this movie. Some of the characters are narrow-minded but they’re not demonised; they are not portrayed as bad people. Their own fears and anxieties, their own shame and guilt, cause them to behave in an intolerant manner. They’re ordinary and in many ways decent people. They’re just scared, and they’re weak. They’re not evil.

It’s also clear that the anxiety the villagers feel about Brydie is at least partly a fear of Brydie’s awakening sexuality. Brydie is becoming a woman with a woman’s emotions and sexuality but she doesn’t have the normal array of repressions and unrepressed female sexuality certainly scares a lot of people.

John Mills does a fine job as director. He wisely doesn’t try anything fancy - this is a character-driven movie and he has a great cast and his main task is to let the actors shine.

Ian McShane is very good. Annette Crosbie as Brydie’s mother is superb. It’s a nicely nuanced performance. Mrs White is an alcoholic and a bit of a nervous wreck but she’s fundamentally a kind person. Geoffrey Bayldon is excellent as the slightly ineffectual but good-natured vicar, a man who is normally weak but who can be strong when he really feels there is something important at stake.

Look out for Jacqueline Pearce is a small role as a fiery gypsy girl.

Of course the movie belongs to Hayley Mills. She gives a delightfully subtle quirky sensitive performance, funny at time and occasionally slightly disturbing. I will never understand why this performance failed to gain her a Best Actress Oscar.

Sky West and Crooked is odd and quirky and although it deals with some serious themes it remains good-natured. There’s plenty of gentle humour. It’s all done with a very light touch. There’s no heavy-handed messaging and it can be enjoyed as a humorously unconventional love story. It’s the sort of offbeat movie that just doesn’t get made any more. If you’re a Hayley Mills fan it’s a must-see. Very highly recommended.

I’m on a bit of a Hayley Mills kick at the moment, having recently watched her in The Chalk Garden and Whistle Down the Wind (both of which are very much worth seeing). And I reviewed her brilliant movie debut Tiger Bay (1959) a while back as well.

Whistle Down the Wind (1961)

Whistle Down the Wind is an odd and touching movie. In a very broad sense it’s a crime thriller with some film noir overtones but mostly it’s a movie about childhood and religious faith. It’s certainly about Christianity but it deals with the subject in a complex way. At the end is Kathy’s faith vindicated or is it shown to be empty and futile? The question is left open. This might be a movie about kids but it’s very much a movie for grownups.

This was the first movie directed by Bryan Forbes who went on to have an interesting career which included the very offbeat Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and the very underrated The Stepford Wives (1975).

Whistle Down the Wind stars Hayley Mills. She was about fourteen when she made this film but was already an established international star. It was based on a novel by her mother, Mary Hayley Bell (who also wrote Hayley’s greatest movie Sky West and Crooked).

Whistle Down the Wind gave Alan Bates his first starring role. It launched him into stardom. It also gave Bernard Lee one of his meatier roles.

Kathy Bostock (Hayley Mills) lives on a Lancashire farm with her younger sister Nan, her little brother Charles and her father (played by Bernard Lee). The children are being raised by their aunt Dottie. The children are certainly aware of the harshness and cruelty of life. As the film opens Eddie (Norman Bird), their father’s farm labourer, is drowning kittens in a sack.

The children rescue the kittens but they’re very much aware that those kittens are under sentence of death if they’re discovered by the grownups. Grownups in this movie are more often than not either cruel, stupid or ineffectual. Their father does his best but he’s rather distant.

The events of the movie stem from a series of innocent irrelevant remarks to which the children (as children do) attach extraordinary significance. Kathy remarks that Jesus is dead. Her sister Nan assures her that Jesus will come to get her for that. In the barn where the kittens are hidden Kathy discovers a rather scruffy sleeping man (played by Alan Bates). When he awakes she asks him who he is. Half-asleep and suddenly seeing this girl staring at him he reacts in shock and mutters Jesus Christ. Kathy takes the words literally. This man must indeed be Jesus.

The children know that the last time Jesus was on Earth the grownups treated him pretty badly so they decide they have to protect him.

Jesus turns out not to be quite what they expected.

The man is in fact a murderer on the run.

They assume that Jesus can answer all the important questions, such as why does God let people and animals die. He has no answers. Kathy decides to ask the vicar but quickly decides that he has no answers at all. Kathy’s faith remains unshaken but little Charles has his doubts. Charles asked Jesus to look after his kitten and Jesus let the kitten die. Charles doesn’t think much of a Jesus who would do that.

Throughout the story the faith of the children is tested. There’s plenty of religious allegory here, all of it ambiguous.

At the end, like the Jesus in the barn, the movie offers no clearcut answers. This Jesus hasn’t saved anybody.

The movie deals not just with faith in God but in more general terms with belief - how we come to believe things, how we cling to our beliefs, how insignificant events can be the foundations of myth.

I don’t see this movie as taking either a definite stance either for or against religious belief. It’s more interested in the mechanism of belief than in the truth or falsity of such beliefs.

Most of the child actors were compete amateurs but they’re marvellous. Diane Holgate as Nan and Alan Barnes as Charles are particularly good.

Alan Bates gives a subtle complex and enigmatic performance. Bernard Lee is excellent. He must have been delighted when he discovered that this time he wasn’t going to be playing a policeman.

Hayley Mills gives one of the two greatest performances of her career (the other being in Sky West and Crooked). She’s totally convincing as a child approaching adulthood who still sees the world very much through the eyes of a child. She also succeeds in conveying Kathy’s conflicted feelings. She feels fairly sure that the man in the barn is Jesus but she isn’t stupid and she can see that some things just don’t add up.

Whistle Down the Wind is a unique and enigmatic film, the sort of film you might see several times and come to entirely different conclusions about it each time. Highly recommended.

The Chalk Garden (1964)

The Chalk Garden is a 1964 British drama directed by Ronald Neame, based on a successful play by Enid Bagnold. It has a dream cast headed by Hayley Mills, John Mills, Edith Evans and Deborah Kerr.

Laurel (Hayley Mills) is a troublesome bratty teenager who lives with her grandmother Mrs St Maugham (Edith Evans) in the latter’s country house. Mrs St Maugham evidently has serious money and perhaps Laurel suffers from being just a bit too privileged.

It’s time once again to hire a new governess for Laurel. This is a regular occurrence. So far Laurel’s record is driving away three governesses in the space of a week. When Miss Madrigal (Deborah Kerr) arrives to be interviewed the first five applicants for the post have already fled in terror. Miss Madrigal has no qualifications and no references and does not care to reveal anything at all about her life and experiences. She obviously has no chance of getting the position except for one thing. She is not afraid of Laurel. Every other governess has been terrified by the child.

Laurel has been living with her grandmother since her mother Olivia remarried. Laurel reacted very very badly to her mother’s remarriage. Old Mrs St Maugham is determined to keep Laurel. She strongly disapproves of Olivia. Laurel claims to hate her mother but as Miss Madrigal soon realises it’s best not to take anything Laurel says too seriously or too literally.

Miss Madrigal may have an ally of sorts in the person of the butler Maitland (John Mills). Maitland is very keen for Laurel to have a governess because otherwise he will be stuck with looking after her. He doesn’t dislike Laurel but she’s quite a handful. Enough to give a butler nightmares.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Deborah Kerr but I have to admit that’s absolutely right for this rôle and she gives a fine nuanced performance as a woman with problems of her own trying to deal with a troubled teenager. John Mills is, as always, splendid. Edith Evans gives the sort of performance you expect her to give - outrageous but wonderful. The supporting cast includes one of my favourite British character actors, Felix Aylmer.

But this movie belongs to Hayley Mills. She gives a performance that is totally over-the-top but at the same time very finely judged. She knows just how far to go, and she makes Laurel obnoxious, spoilt, spiteful, vulnerable, confused, adorable and very sympathetic.

Hayley Mills had an intriguing early career, alternating between fluffy Disney movies and very serious very demanding dramatic rôles and giving some extraordinarily interesting, subtle and powerful performances in movies like Whistle Down the Wind and the superb Sky West and Crooked. In The Chalk Garden she’s like an acting tornado, which is exactly what was required of her.

This is a melodrama produced by Ross Hunter for Universal and it has a definite Ross Hunter vibe to it. Any movie produced by Ross Hunter ended up being a Ross Hunter movie, with his characteristic visual style and the Ross Hunter feel. He was an interesting example of the producer as auteur. Ronald Neame directed (and he was a talented director) but it doesn’t feel like a Ronald Neame movie. It feels like a Ross Hunter movie.

This is certainly melodrama. The plot contains the kinds of coincidences that would seem far-fetched in any other genre but in melodrama you just accept such things. It’s also a movie that positively wallows in emotional angst. But that’s what melodrama is all about. If you don’t love melodrama you’re not going to like this movie. If you do have a fondness for the genre you’ll be in movie heaven.

What saves it is the quality of the performances. Characters who would have been impossibly cloying and irritating and phoney in lesser hands come alive in the hands of Edith Evans, John Mills and especially Deborah Kerr and Hayley Mills. We end up caring about these people. The performers are even able to get away with some excruciatingly portentous dialogue.

What also saves it is the fact that Laurel is such an interesting character. This is a coming-of-age movie but it’s not a sexual or romantic coming-of-age movie. Laurel is sixteen but is in many ways still a little girl. As the story progresses she has to learn to deal with other people in an adult way and to take on a few adult responsibilities. She resists this. She wants to live in her own world, a world in which she makes the rules and the outside world, the grown-up world, is excluded. But eventually she will have to enter the adult world. It’s very unusual, and very interesting, to see a coming-of-age movie that sees the transition to adulthood as being about more than just sex and love.

We’re horrified when Laurel hurts other people but we understand that she simply isn’t aware that she is doing so. Other people are not quite real to her. But we don’t want Laurel to be hurt because, like Miss Madrigal, we can see that she behaves badly because she’s scared and confused rather than malicious.

There’s also a sub-plot which is a kind of mystery, but not in a conventional sense. It involves one of the characters who has a secret. The revelation of that secret is predictable in some ways, except that there’s a key piece of the puzzle that is tantalisingly never revealed.

The Imprint Blu-Ray looks great and includes an audio commentary by Kat Ellinger.

If you’re a fan of Ross Hunter’s movies you’ll enjoy The Chalk Garden a great deal. If you’re a Hayley Mills fan it’s a must-see. I fall into both those categories so I liked this film. Highly recommended.

Tiger Bay (1959)

Tiger Bay, released in 1959, marked the film debut of 12-year-old Hayley Mills and few actresses have had such an extraordinarily impressive start to a film career. This is a crime thriller but it’s also a bit more than that - it’s a film about friendship and loyalty and duty and moral dilemmas. 

A Polish sailor, Korchinsky (Horst Buchholz) discovers that his girlfriend has dumped him for another man and in a moment of madness and rage he kills her. The murder is witnessed by an 11-year-old girl, Gillie (Hayley Mills). Gillie also finds the murder weapon, a revolver. Korchinsky tracks her down to find out exactly how much she knows and this marks the beginning of an odd and rather touching friendship.

Meanwhile Superintendent Graham (John Mills) has begun his investigation and it soon becomes apparent that Gillie may be a key witness. The problem is that Gillie is an inveterate (and expert) liar. Superintendent Graham has no idea how much of what she has told him is true. Apart from the fact that Gillie lies from force of habit she is also now lying to protect her friend Korchinsky.

Korchinsky and Gillie are on the run while the police are distracted by another suspect. 

All Korchinsky has to do is get a place among the crew of another ship and once the ship is beyond the 3-mile limit he is safe. He won’t have to worry about extradition since although Superintendent Graham is sure that he’s the killer the evidence against him is extremely weak. Graham has to get his man in custody before he can get away so that he can build his case. He’s hoping Gillie will provide the evidence he needs but this is far from certain since she’s about as uncooperative a witness as you could ever come across.

There might not be anything startlingly original in the mystery plot but the screenplay (by John Hawkesworth and Shelley Smith) has enough suspense to keep the audience satisfied.

Much more interesting is the odd friendship between Korchinsky and Gillie. They’re both somewhat adrift emotionally. Korchinsky’s girlfriend betrayed him while Gillie’s parents are dead. There’s nothing creepy about the friendship. To Gillie Korchinsky is perhaps a combination of father figure, big brother figure and (given that Korchinsky is himself a bit child-like) idealised best friend. One assumes that Korchinsky sees Gillie as representing the daughter he might have had if things had worked out for him. It’s an oddly touching friendship and a tragic one since we know it’s unlikely to have a happy ending.

There’s a definite touch of film noir to Tiger Bay. Korchinsky is a nice guy whose whole world suddenly collapsed on him and a split second of madness completed his ruin. 

His friendship with Gillie seems to offer him a possible path to redemption but we have our doubts as to whether there can be any escape for him. He and Gillie have found friendship but it’s a kind of childish fantasy and reality is remorselessly closing in on them.

Eric Cross’s moody black-and-white cinematography adds to the noir feel.

Mention should also be made of the wonderful locations in Cardiff’s docklands, sadly all now demolished and replaced by soulless modern horrors.

J. Lee Thompson had an inconsistent career but he directed a handful of bona fide masterpieces and this is one of them. He’s in complete command, the pacing is tight and the overall atmosphere is an interesting but effective mix of noir bleakness and bucolic idyll. 

John Mills is very solid in a not terribly demanding role. Horst Buchholz, a kind of German James Dean (although a much better actor than Dean), is superb. He plays Korchinsky as a kind of innocent and it works. 

The movie however belongs to Hayley Mills. Her performance is extraordinarily confident and accomplished. Gillie could have been an irritating stereotype but she comes across as likeable, believable and sympathetic. In the original screenplay the character was a boy. This changed when John Mills was cast and it suddenly occurred to J. Lee Thompson that the character could just as easily be a girl and that the actor’s daughter Hayley might well be ideal for the role. 

The movie’s greatest strength is its ability to deal with its subject matter without resorting to cheap sentimentality or crude emotional manipulation.

Tiger Bay offers a good thriller plot, great acting, inspired direction and an intelligent and sensitive treatment of the dilemmas of friendship and loyalty. Very highly recommended.