The name Diana Dors conjours up a sex symbol, Britain's answer to Marilyn Monroe. She was so much more than that, but because of her image, her best performances were ignored by critics.
Based on the Ruth Ellis case, Dors plays Mary Hilton. In the first scene, we see her, during the daytime with people around, deliberately empty a gun into the body of of a woman. We next see her in a death row prison - deglamorized, guarded by matrons, in a room with a door without a handle, leading to where she will be executed.
According to what I've read, there had been a series of controversial hangings by the time this film was made. This film has the character hoping for a reprieve from the governor.
Mary looks back on the events leading up to the murder. Married, she falls in love with someone else, a pianist at a club, Jim (Michael Craig). She becomes obsessed with, to the point where she leaves her husband.
So entrenched in her love for Jim and devotion to him, she fails to see that Jim isn't as in love as she is. In fact, he becomes obsessed with a wealthy woman, Lucy. It's a destructive, up and down relationship, as is Mary's with Jim, but she lets him come crying to her when Louise rejects him.
Jim finally is driven to commit suicide and leaves a letter for Lucy. When Mary realizes the letter isn't for her, she snaps.
While in prison, Mary has a daily routine. The matrons take her for a walk daily, and it's obvious that they become fond of her, one giving her a cloth to cover her eyes while she sleeps, as the light is always on. She has to eat with a spoon, and when she bathes, a matron cuts her nails. She has a few visitors, none of whom she really wants to see - her ex-husband, her mother, and her brother.
Mary also meets with the chaplain, and finally, a lovely woman (Athene Seyler), sort of a volunteer prison visitor, who brings Mary flowers, gives her some comfort, and tries to get Mary to accept what she's done and what is about to happen.
The matrons give wonderful performances - Joan Miller, Marianne Stone, Olga Lindo, who plays the warden, and Yvonne Mitchell, all of whom have developed a relationship with Mary and dread the last day as much as she does.
Dors gives a subtly powerful performance, soft, sympathetic, quietly anxious in prison, and desperate in her scenes with Jim. We see her gorgeous and glamorous and in prison garb, her hair darkened with roots showing.
This isn't the first time Dors played a role where she is in prison. She also wound up there in "The Unholy Wife." She demonstrated then, as in this film, that she was a good dramatic actress. The film's alternate title is "The Blond Sinner," and the posters don't really suggest the story.
Well directed by J. Lee Thompson, Yield to the Night is an excellent film with a performance that deserved much more attention.
