Yield to the Night [Blonde Sinner] **** (1956, Diana Dors, Yvonne Mitchell, Michael Craig) – Classic Movie Review 5746

Director J Lee Thompson’s 1956 British anti-capital punishment drama Yield to the Night stars the hitherto cheesecake star Diana Dors, who copes extremely creditably, indeed admirably, with a big serious dramatic role as Mary Price Hilton, a lightly fictionalised version of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged for murder in Britain, a tale retold in Dance with a Stranger (1985).

On Death Row, married woman Mary remembers her affair with a handsome lounge-room pianist called Jim Lancaster (Michael Craig), who cheats on her and leaves her for another woman, whom she then shoots dead when Lancaster commits suicide.

With John Cresswell and Joan Henry’s screenplay based on the novel by Joan Henry, this fanciful version of the real story may be necessarily downbeat and despairing, but it still persuades and compels. It is a great move for much loved actress Dors, breaking her typecast image, showing what she can really do. No wonder she alleged that it was the only good film she ever made.

Also in the cast are Yvonne Mitchell as Matron Hilda MacFarlane, Marie Ney as the Prison Governess, Geoffrey Keen as the Prison Chaplain, Liam Redmond as the Prison Doctor, Olga Lindo as Senior Matron Hill, Mary Mackenzie, Joan Miller, Marjorie Rhodes, Athene Seyler, Molly Urquhart, Harry Locke, Michael Ripper, Joyce Blair, Mona Washbourne, Marianne Stone, Charles Lloyd Pack, Dandy Nichols, Charles Clay and Shirley Anne Field.

Gilbert Taylor shoots it in film noir-style black and white.

It is also known by its US title of Blonde Sinner.

Yield to the Night [aka Blonde Sinner] is directed by J Lee Thompson, runs 99 minutes, is made by Kenwood Production, is released by Associated British-Pathé, is written by John Cresswell and Joan Henry, based on the book by Joan Henry, is shot in black and white by Gilbert Taylor, is produced by Robert Clark (executive producer) and Kenneth Harper, is scored by Ray Martin and designed by Robert Jones.

J Lee Thompson was married to author Joan Henry after meeting her when Thompson was filming The Weak and the Wicked [Young and Willing] (1954), also based on a novel by Joan Henry.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5746

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Diana Dors stars in Yield to the Night [Blonde Sinner] (1956).