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.
Meanwhile Gillie Evans (Hayley Mills), an orphaned tomboy who lives with her Aunt, is playing with boys at the dockside. Bronek approaches the group, seeking help in locating the address he has been given. Gillie, who lives in the same building, walks with him.
Bronek finds Anya in her new flat, but she tells him to leave. Frustrated by Bronek's long trips at sea, Anya has been seeing a married sportscaster named Barclay (Anthony Dawson). Bronek, furious with jealousy, screams at her, and she pulls a gun from her dresser, but he takes the gun and shoots Anya dead. Gillie who had been playing in the hall with caps, hears the shouting and witnesses the murder as she peeks through the apartment door's letter box. Gillie's play with caps has also masked the sounds of the gun shots for the rest of the building.
Gillie sees where Bronek hides the gun, and she takes it to use as a toy. Barclay arrives to visit Anya, but, finding her dead, quickly flees. A neighbour discovers the body and summons the police.
The investigating police superintendent, Graham (John Mills), learns that Gillie was in the hall during the shooting and deduces that she witnessed the murder. However, Gillie, a habitual liar, gives an incorrect description of Bronek and does not tell Graham that she has the gun. Later, Bronek, who saw Gillie take the gun, chases her into the attic. He takes the gun from her, and they become friends. He agrees to take her to sea with him when he flees the country.
Bronek plans to depart the next day on a Venezuelan merchant ship, the Poloma; for the night, Gillie leads him to a hiding place in the countryside, where he entertains her by re-enacting his overseas adventures. Meanwhile, the police discover a photograph of Bronek and Anya together, sparking interest in Bronek's identity. Under police questioning Barclay admits to having visited Anya's apartment the day she was shot, making him a prime suspect.
With the Poloma set to sail, Bronek persuades Gillie to let him go alone. Bronek leaves her with his metal cigarette case. Some picnickers find Gillie at the country hideout and take her to the police, where she continues to lie, identifying Barclay as the murderer. With Barclay as the suspect, she admits that she saw the crime and re-enacts it for Graham at the apartment, but accidentally reveals that she knows the killer is Polish. She still denies knowing Bronek, but by now the police know he is the murderer. Both the police and Bronek are aware of the three-mile limit for British legal jurisdiction.
Graham drives Gillie to the pilot station at Barry Docks and takes her on a pilot boat to the Poloma as the ship approaches the boundary of territorial waters. At this point, Gillie is obviously trying to obstruct Graham's progress. When the inspector confronts Gillie and Bronek now together aboard the Poloma, they deny knowing each other. Nevertheless, Graham attempts to arrest Bronek, but the ship's captain prevents him, saying that his navigation officer has plotted Poloma's position as just outside the three-mile limit, and therefore beyond the jurisdiction of the British police.
Gillie runs around on the ship trying to evade both crew and police, and falls overboard while trying to stow away on the ship in the hope of remaining with Bronek. Being the only person to see her fall, Bronek dives into the water to save her and loses his ship. The pair are rescued by the police boat sent from Barry Island. Bronek admits his guilt after Gillie hugs him, and Graham commends him for his bravery in saving her. The Poloma sails off and his chance of freedom has gone.
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. Mills felt the right actor in the part of the 12-year-old boy would "walk away with the picture" but he liked the script and wanted to work with Thompson again. [1]
Thompson went to Mills' house in Sussex to discuss the project and wound up talking to Mills' 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." [2] Although Hayley had not expressed that much interest in acting, John Mills and his wife agreed. Thompson decided to cast her even without testing. [3]
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. [4]
Filming started 15 September 1958. The film was shot on location in Cardiff, Wales and in Beaconsfield Studios. Regarding daughter Hayley's acting abilities, John Mills said when they started filming "I simply couldn't believe what was happening. She looked as if she'd been born in front of a camera." [5]
The film has repeated sections showing the Newport Transporter Bridge in action, one of the few travelling bridges in the world.
Although the captain and first officer of the Poloma are shown speaking Spanish the actors were both Cypriots.
Sir John Mills was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portrayed guileless, wounded war heroes. In 1971, he received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Ryan's Daughter.
Horst Werner Buchholz was a German actor who appeared in more than 60 feature films from 1951 to 2002. During his youth, he was sometimes called "the German James Dean". He is perhaps best known in English-speaking countries for his role as Chico in The Magnificent Seven (1960), as a communist in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961), and as Dr. Lessing in Life Is Beautiful (1997).
Hayley Catherine Rose Vivien Mills is an English actress. The daughter of Sir John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell and younger sister of actress Juliet Mills, she began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her performance in the British crime drama film Tiger Bay (1959), the Academy Juvenile Award for Disney's Pollyanna (1960) and Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress in 1961.
Billie Honor Whitelaw was an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and was regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works. She was also known for her portrayal of Mrs. Baylock, the demonic nanny in the 1976 horror film The Omen.
John Lee Thompson was a British film director, active in London and Hollywood, best known for award-winning films such as Woman in a Dressing Gown, Ice Cold in Alex and The Guns of Navarone along with cult classics like Cape Fear, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and The White Buffalo.
Mary Hayley Bell, Lady Mills was an English actress and writer, married for 64 years to actor Sir John Mills. Her novel Whistle Down the Wind was adapted as a film, starring her teenaged daughter, actress Hayley Mills.
The Flame Trees of Thika is a British television serial of seven 50-minute episodes made by Euston Films for Thames Television in 1981. It was adapted by John Hawkesworth from the 1959 book of the same title by Elspeth Huxley, and is set in and around the town of Thika in Kenya's Central Province. The story deals with the lives of British settlers in this part of East Africa in 1913, when the country was a British colony, up to the start of World War One.
The Greengage Summer is a 1961 British drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Kenneth More and Susannah York. It was based on the novel The Greengage Summer (1958) by Rumer Godden. Set in Épernay, in the Champagne region of France, it is the story of the transition of a teenage girl into womanhood.
For Queen and Country is a 1988 crime drama film co-written and directed by Martin Stellman and starring Denzel Washington in Panavision. Washington stars as Reuben James, a Black British former paratrooper, who joined the British Army to escape the poverty of inner city London; Reuben fights in the Falklands War, and upon returning home he finds that society ignores and challenges him while trying to adjust to normal life.
Hard Candy is a 2005 American psychological thriller film focusing on a 14-year-old female vigilante's trapping and torture of a man whom she suspects of being a sexual predator. The film was directed by David Slade, written by Brian Nelson, and stars Elliot Page and Patrick Wilson. It was the first feature film for Slade, who had primarily directed music videos.
The Moon-Spinners is a 1964 American mystery film starring Hayley Mills, Eli Wallach and Peter McEnery in a story about a jewel thief hiding on the island of Crete. Produced by Walt Disney Productions, the film was based upon a 1962 suspense novel by Mary Stewart and was directed by James Neilson. It featured the legendary silent film actress Pola Negri in her final screen performance.
Joshua "Josh" West is a fictional character from the Australian Channel Seven soap opera Home and Away, played by Daniel Collopy. He debuted on-screen on 21 November 2001. West left the series on 30 April 2003 upon departing for two years, but made reappearances before departing on 31 October 2003. He returned on 23 September 2005. He then made his final on-screen appearance on 16 May 2006, when he was killed off.
Whistle Down the Wind is a 1961 British children's crime drama film directed by Bryan Forbes, adapted by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall from the 1958 novel of the same name by Mary Hayley Bell. The film stars her daughter Hayley Mills, who was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Actress for this film.
Tiger Bay is a district of Cardiff.
The Truth about Spring is a 1965 American-British Technicolor adventure film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Hayley Mills, John Mills and James MacArthur. It is a romantic comedy adventure. It was released by Universal. According to Filmink "it tried to be a Disney-style adventure-romance, complete with another Disney alumni as lead and location filming (Spain), but did not work."
Nine Hours to Rama is 1963 British-American neo noir crime film directed by Mark Robson, that follows a fictionalised Nathuram Godse in the hours before he assassinated the Indian independence leader, Gandhi, and police attempts to prevent the murder. It is based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Stanley Wolpert. The movie was written by Nelson Gidding and filmed in England and India with mainly white actors in prominent roles. It stars Horst Buchholz, Diane Baker, Jose Ferrer, and Robert Morley. It was shot in CinemaScope DeLuxe Color.
Pollyanna is a 1960 American comedy-drama film starring child actress Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Karl Malden, and Richard Egan in a story about a cheerful orphan changing the outlook of a small town. The film was written and directed by David Swift, based on the 1913 novel Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter. The film won Hayley Mills an Academy Juvenile Award. It was the last film of actor Adolphe Menjou.
Blind Date is a 1959 British murder mystery film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Hardy Krüger, Stanley Baker, and Micheline Presle. The plot is about a police inspector who investigates a woman's death, with her lover being the prime suspect. Ben Barzman and Millard Lampell were nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay.
The Chalk Garden is a 1964 British-American film directed by Ronald Neame. It stars Deborah Kerr and Hayley Mills and is an adaptation of the 1955 play of the same name by Enid Bagnold.
Whirlpool is a 1959 British crime film directed by Lewis Allen and starring Juliette Gréco and O. W. Fischer. The score from Ron Goodwin established him as a film composer.
