My first celebrity crush was blonde ingenue Hayley Mills. If you are older or have seen old Disney movies, you may remember her from 1960’s Pollyanna and/or 1961’s The Parent Trap—the original one. Those were probably the first two films I ever saw her in, being of an age for kid’s movies, and Disney being a safe choice for children. But as I grew in film knowledge and thought back to my unrequited love for this young actress, I discovered that she had made a big splash the year earlier in a film called Tiger Bay, directed by J. Lee Thompson (Oscar nominee for directing The Guns of Navarone) and featuring her famous father John in a supporting role. (Note: John Mills was already a stage and screen legend at this time. Aside from a hefty list of stage successes, Mills had already starred in David Lean’s Great Expectations as Pip, and in Noel Coward’s In Which We Serve, and later went on to win a Best Supporting Actor Award for his work in Lean’s Ryan’s Daughter.)

I looked at various streaming services with no success, and even tried the library system in my region, all to no avail in terms of being able to view this mysterious film. I finally tried YouTube, not my first choice for quality films, but I was finally able to view a good version of it there.

It’s a fascinating film, both for its promises and its unusual look and feel. Its promises were its two leads: first-time actor 12-year-old Hayley and the supposed “German James Dean,” Horst Buchholz, making his debut in English-speaking films. These two are the promises, which have sadly been unfulfilled. Buchholz was in 1960’s The Magnificent Seven and later, in 1997’s Life is Beautiful. But he never achieved the level of success of his German-speaking career, and has perhaps become more famous for the roles he turned down: Sherif Ali in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, which made Omar Sharif an international star; the lead in A Fistful of Dollars, which made Clint Eastwood an international star; and the role of Tony in West Side Story, which would clearly have catapulted him to international stardom (and which might have resulted in a better film).

After this spectacular debut, Hayley Mills could have had one of the careers of the century. She was so natural, so unaffected in this film (especially as contrasted with many of the child actors of the time) that it seemed she could do anything. She quickly stacked up the honors: a Silver Berlin Bear Special prize for her performance in Tiger Bay, as well as a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Film. Then she won the last Juvenile Oscar given for her work in Pollyanna, as well as a Golden Globe for Pollyanna for Most Promising Newcomer-Female. She was also nominated for BAFTA Best Actress Awards for Pollyanna and 1962’s Whistle Down the Wind.  Lastly, she scored a hit with the song “Let’s Get Together,” which made it to number 8 on the Billboard Top 100, and which found a place in my brain that it refuses to leave. British exhibitors voted her the most popular film actress in England in 1962, when she was all of 14.

The Disney connection was a two-edged sword. It brought her world-side success, and then cramped her artistic growth. Mills also seems to have fallen into the trap of many child stars who jump into adult life too quickly, and then pay for it. In 1966, 20-year-old Mills met began a relationship with 53-year-old director Roy Boulting, whom she married in 1971—her first, his fourth out of five. Not surprisingly, this personal and professional connection set her on a less-than-successful personal and professional path, and while she had the occasional modest success, and is still acting, she never fulfilled that early promise. (They divorced in 1977).

Her partner in Tiger Bay, Buchholz, was also on the verge of becoming a major international star when he made the film. But his subsequent choices in what he would and would not take seem to have worked against a stellar career. He skillfully chews on every piece of furniture in the film, à la James Dean, and has the requisite pain in his eyes. But his acting career was soon relegated back to his native Germany, and he augmented his film work there with a successful career in dubbing.

Tiger Bay itself is something of a hybrid. It has wonderful black-and-white cinematography that beautifully matches its noir influences. But it also has early stylistic signs in its camerawork and editing that lean into both New Wave influences from France as well as the “kitchen-sink” dramas of early 1960’s British films. Those styles don’t always combine well for a modern viewer, but for film nerds/buffs/aficionados, it’s fascinating to watch. What doesn’t work at all is the music, which borrows the worst of 1940’s and ’50’s Hollywood films, reflecting and announcing insistently on matching what we see to what we are unfortunate enough to hear. It is well worth the watch, in spite of its odd features, and is a thrilling story with strong human dimensions.

Unlike River Phoenix, Heath Ledger, Brittany Murphy, Anton Yelchin, Chadwick Boseman, and James Dean himself, Ms. Mills is still with us. Just thinking of her brings up complicated feelings. She was my “first love,” she made an amazing first film, and she was able to make several more films over her lifetime. But…what could have been…? We’ll never know.

Fun last note: Hayley’s actual “debut,” like Liza Minnelli, was as a baby in a film starring one of her parents. In Hayley’s case, it was 1947’s So Well Remembered, which also featured her sister Juliet, also an accomplished actress. So when Tiger Bay was released, it was advertised as her “return” to film.