Main Cast: Diana Dors, Yvonne Mitchell, Michael Craig, Marie Ney, Geoffrey Keen
Release Year: 1956
Country: UK
Run Time: 99 minutes
Plot
Mary Hilton (Diana Dors) is a young salesgirl in the cosmetics department of a major London store, who chances to meet -- and fall hopelessly in love with -- Jim Lancaster (Michael Craig), a young would-be professional musician. She is attracted to him sufficiently to leave her own, neglectful husband (Harry Locke). But Jim's interest in her, although also sincere, is deflected by his attraction to Lucy Carpenter (Mercia Shaw), a much wealthier and older woman, who seems to be able to offer him the security that he's always lacked. That's difficult enough for Mary to take, but when Jim's relationship with Lucy takes a tragic turn, she snaps -- her love for Jim is transformed into a murderous hatred for her rival, resulting in murder, and a death sentence. Mary's story is told entirely in flashbacks, as she awaits her final sentencing or possible reprieve, and attempts to tie up the loose ends in her life involving her mother, brother, and husband. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Review
J. Lee Thompson's Yield To The Night (aka Blonde Sinner) offers a bravura performance by Diana Dors, as a woman too driven by her own irrational passions. Officially based on a novel by Joan Henry, the story is a very thinly-disguised retelling of the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman ever executed in England, whose case was also dramatized in Dance With A Stranger, nearly three decades later. The movie, which was meticulously written and designed, suffers to some extent from the confined setting in which the action takes place, a drawback that is not wholly mitigated by the flashbacks in which the story is told -- Dors commands the screen in virtually every one of her scenes, however, a riveting presence, and she is matched by an exceptional cast led by Yvonne Mitchell as the most sympathetic of her warders. Michael Craig is on screen a little too briefly, as the man the center of her romantic obsession, but he is effective in his scenes, and it is only the sheer unpleasantness of the subject that prevents this movie from being more engrossing than it is; Dors et al are all appealing and wonderful to watch in their work, but Thompson never overcomes the hurdle of the inevitable ending. As this modestly budgeted UK thriller never got overly wide distribution in the United States, it is not nearly as well-known as Robert Wise's I Want To Live, which deals with a similar subject -- also retelling a true story -- in a more stylish and overtly dramatic manner (complete with a jazz-based score). But it should always be remembered that Wise's movie was made and released two years after Yield To The Night. Thompson fared better with fictional subjects that afforded him more creative leeway, including The Yellow Balloon and Tiger Bay. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
J. Lee Thompson - Director, Ray Martin - Composer (Music Score), Gilbert Taylor - Cinematographer, Kenneth Harper - Producer, John Cresswell - Screenwriter, Joan Henry - Screenwriter, Joan Henry - Book Author
Yield to the Night (also titled Blonde Sinner) is a 1956 British crime drama film starring Diana Dors as a murderess sentenced to hang and spending her last days in the condemned cell in a British women's prison. The film received much positive critical attention, particularly for the skilled acting of Dors, who had previously been cast solely as a British version of the stereotypical "blonde bombshell".
The storyline in Yield to the Night bears a superficial resemblance to the Ruth Ellis case, which had occurred the previous year. However, the film is based on the novel of the same title published in 1954 by Joan Henry. The film was entered into the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.[1]
Coincidentally, Ruth Ellis appeared as an uncredited beauty queen in the 1951 film Lady Godiva Rides Again, also staring Diana Dors.
