Yield to the Night

Yield to the Night (also titled Blonde Sinner in the US) is a 1956 British crime drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Diana Dors.[3] The film is based on the novel of the same title published in 1954 by Joan Henry.[4] The storyline bears a superficial and coincidental resemblance to the Ruth Ellis case, which had occurred the previous year but subsequent to the release of Henry's novel. The film received much positive critical attention, particularly for the unexpectedly skilled acting of Dors, who had previously been cast solely as a British version of the typical "blonde bombshell".[5] The movie was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.[6]

Yield to the Night
Theatrical poster to the US release of Yield to the Night (1956)
Directed byJ. Lee Thompson
Produced byKenneth Harper
Written byJohn Cresswell
Joan Henry
StarringDiana Dors
Music byRay Martin
CinematographyGilbert Taylor
Edited byRichard Best
Distributed byAssociated British-Pathé
Release date
14 June 1956 (World Premiere, London)[1]
18 November 1956 (US)
Running time
99 mins.
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Box office£174,911[2]

Premise

Mary Hilton (Diana Dors) has been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang, and she spends her last weeks in the condemned cell in a British women's prison. While there she remembers the events in her life leading up to the murder.

Cast

Production

The film was based on a book by Joan Henry, a writer and former debutante who had gone to prison. Henry wrote a memoir about her experiences which was filmed as The Weak and the Wicked, directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Diana Dors. Thompson married Henry and they decided to collaborate on another movie. Thompson was anti-capital punishment and wanted to do a story about a man in a death cell. Henry said he could not write about a man but might be able to do it about a woman. "So he really gave me the idea, and then I showed him a plan," she said. The novel of Yield to the Night was published in 1954.[7][8][9]

The storyline bore some similarities to the Ruth Ellis case but Henry wrote the story and script during the filming of The Weak and the Wicked. Dors said it "wasn’t about Ruth Ellis at all. Everybody thinks it was but the script was written two years before Ruth Ellis committed the murder. It’s a fascinating syndrome that all this was put down on paper before it happened."[10]

Thompson later said "For capital punishment you must take somebody who deserves to die, and then feel sorry for them and say this is wrong. We did that in Yield to the Night: we made it a ruthless, premeditated murder."[11]

Dors said this "was the first time I ever had a chance to play such a part. I was very thankful to Lee J. Thompson for having faith in me. Until then everybody thought I was just a joke, and certainly not an actress to be taken seriously, even though I knew within myself I was capable of playing other roles. The big problem was trying to convince other people.”[10]

Filming started at Elstree Studios on 2 November 1955.[12]

Reception

Variety called it "a grim form of entertainment."[13]

The movie was Britain's entry to the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.

A 19 year old woman reportedly suicided within hours of watching the film.[14]

gollark: Sounds smart.
gollark: It would have been better to get on at the start, because land.
gollark: You can do that?
gollark: Oh, yes, also make sure to wipe out EFI variables to stop viruses.
gollark: `/vmlinuz` was probably a virus anyway.

References
  1. "Yield to the Night". Art & Hue. 2018. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  2. Vincent Porter, 'The Robert Clark Account', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 20 No 4, 2000 p510
  3. "Yield to the Night (1956)". BFI.
  4. Williams, Melanie (30 June 2006). "Diana Dors: An angry young woman". The Independent. Retrieved 1 November 2010.
  5. "BFI Screenonline: Yield to the Night (1956)".
  6. "Festival de Cannes: Yield to the Night". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  7. Yield to the Night at TCMDB
  8. "REVIEWS OF BOOKS IN BRIEF". The West Australian. 70, (21, 278). Western Australia. 2 October 1954. p. 29. Retrieved 15 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  9. "A woman on Death Row". The Daily Telegraph. XV, (49). New South Wales, Australia. 24 October 1954. p. 24. Retrieved 15 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  10. Williams, Tony (2000). "Diana Dors". Psychotronic Video. No. 32. p. 50.
  11. "Diana Dors: An Angry Young Woman". The Independent. 30 June 2006.
  12. Diana Chills the Blood Author: Maurice Wiltshire Date: Thursday, Nov. 3, 1955 Publication: Daily Mail (London, England) page 3
  13. Review of film at Variety
  14. "SUICIDES AFTER SEEING FILM". The Canberra Times. 30, (1, 957). Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 7 September 1956. p. 14. Retrieved 15 August 2020 – via National Library of Australia.CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)


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