YIELD TO THE NIGHT (1956)

In a fairly brutal opening scene, we see Mary (Diana Dors), a statuesque blonde, walk down a London street and shoot a woman to death as she gets out of her car. Mary shoots several times, then just stands there as a small crowd congregates. Through flashbacks, we catch up on her story. While working as a beauty shop cashier, she sold a bottle of Christmas Rose perfume to Jim (Michael Craig), who bought it for his girlfriend Lucy. They flirt, he calls her 'Christmas Rose,' and soon they're lovers. She leaves her husband, but is not happy when he seems disinclined to stop seeing Lucy. Eventually, he chooses Lucy, but she continues seeing other people, and a drunk and suicidal Jim visits Mary one night. He passes out, but on New Year's Eve, he gasses himself to death in his apartment. Mary, blaming Lucy, hunts her down and shoots her, as we've already seen. On trial, Mary is found guilty and sentenced to death. She bonds with one of her wardens, Pat (Yvonne Mitchell) who has been through her own trauma and develops feelings for Mary even as the date of Mary's execution draws near. Despite my summary, the bulk of this film takes place in Mary's prison cell where we are privy to the conversation of various wardens who attend to Mary. Mary and Pat do have a special relationship that comes off as quite intense on Pat's part, though she's never open about her feelings. The flashbacks are sprinkled through the account of the days before her execution date. Mary holds out some hope for a reprieve, but that doesn't feel realistic. The staggered chronology is probably used to alleviate some of the gloom and monotony of the prison cell, but it doesn't quite work—I still found the last half-hour to be a bit of a slog as Mary largely seems resigned to her fate and is much less interesting than in the flashbacks. Diana Dors, known mostly at the time as a sexpot starlet, gives a very good performance as Mary, and she's the main reason to see this. Yvonne Mitchell and Michael Craig are fine, though their characters remain fairly surface. This has a noir feel visually (lots of interesting camerawork and shots through doors and windows) but the gloomy tone of the prison scenes is mostly what you're left with by the end. Also released as Blonde Sinner. Pictured are Dors and Craig. [Criterion Channel]