Peine capitale

I came to this film with pretty superficial view of Diana Dors. I couldn't have been more wrong. She gives a career best performance. On so many levels it stands head and shoulders above mid 50s Brit cinema. Truly international standard. Great ensemble acting; strong direction; and some lovely cinematography. It was clearly a powerful piece in its time - dramatically as well as a piece of social agitprop. It's still worthy of your attention more than 60 years on. What a shame this part didn't lead to the acting opportunities Diana deserved.

Diana Dors in her first dramatic role, and last before her unsuccessful venture into Hollywood, sees her trade in her glamorous image for a more realistic and down to earth performance as a woman who finds herself on death row after committing a crime of passion. The film, based on a John Henry novel, has obvious similarities to the real life drama of Ruth Ellis, who murdered her ex-lover on a busy London street and become the last British woman to be hung a year before this film was made.

Dors had become one of the more famous starlets to emerge in Britain's post-war attempt at a Hollywood-like star system. Her familiarity with British audiences no doubt ensured sympathy for her character, which played partly on her bad-girl image. However, this was more than a mere star vehicle, and it saw her transform herself from a star to a serious actress. The American distributors seemed to miss the point somewhat, titling the film on its release there, 'Blonde Sinner'.

The film obviously draws upon the controversial issue of capital punishment. There is no doubt that, despite us witnessing her murder in cold blood, our sympathies are meant to lie with Dors' character. This is of course partly due to her star persona but also because of the way in which the film is directed. Rarely do we see the face of her victim who we learn nothing of apart from his cold attitude towards her ex-lover, Michael Craig, whom Dors has shown nothing but compassion for. Her callous attitude towards his tragic New Years eve suicide is exemplary of this, when she shrugs him off as someone who had just been a nuisance to her.

However, the film is commendable in that manages to avoid mere melodrama. We don't just get a one-sided view of events. We are left in no doubt that the Dors character is herself an adultress who committed a murder with malice and forethought. The issue the film achieves in getting across is the detrimental effect the capital punishment system has on those who are around it. Not only do we see the effect it has on Dors' family but also we get an insight of the wardesses who are with her for her final days. In particular we recognise the discipline shown by Yvonne Mitchell's character, Macfarlane, a young wardess who is drawn with compassion and sympathy towards Dors, and yet must contain her emotions especially during the last agonisingly pensive hours. There is also a feeling that we should not be overly sympathetic towards Dors, as she is rebuked by an elderly Christian lady that visits her for being too self-pitying and for showing little or no remorse. This theme is of course drawn on in more detail in Tim Robbins' recent death row drama 'Dead Man Walking'.

J. Lee Thompson's taut direction shows signs of his later atmospheric Stateside successes such as 'Cape Fear'. The expressionistic filming techniques used to add to the claustrophobic tension of the prison cell scenes are particularly effective. Yvonne Mitchell provides a strong supporting role as the young wardess who befriends Dors. However, it is Dors herself who should be applauded most of all for her emotional and naturalistic performance as the woman awaiting her fate. Some of the film's themes may seem rather cliched to a modern audience but I would imagine it hit a nerve when the issue was at the forethought of the British consciousness.

In the best tradition of black and white, this film starts with a bang. After a pair of shapely legs get out of a classic 56 T-Bird in England somewhere, a gun shot is fired, without ever seeing who did it. The idea of making an anti- capital punishment movie in the mid-fifties right after the McCarthy era was ahead of it's time. Never preachy or blatantly left winged, this great unknown sleeper carries on the classic female incarcerated films of THE SNAKE PIT to the era of fins. Even the female prison guards show compassion, and the movie never uses bitch-slapping gimmicks for thrill effects. A quiet study that still touches the heart. Diana Dors shines in a smart role choice that added to her credits away from her necessary frothy pointed bra-B flicks. No wonder people loved her right up to her death.

True "Blonde bombshells" of a starring nature come along only once or twice in a decade, and the number from, say, 1930 to 1960 is not all that many: Jean Harlow, Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe, Diana Dors, Jayne Mansfield, Kim Novak, and that about does it. Of these, Harlow died too young and as an actress was memorable mainly in comedy, Turner turned into a very good actress as the years passed, Monroe was greatly loved but her true acting talent beyond her natural charisma was not really all that great, and Novak was passable. Mansfield was Mansfield. Diana Dors, however, despite her 'blonde bombshell' reputation and being probably the least beautiful of that group (one could hardly call her even very pretty) was a very legitimate actress, out of RADA, and gave excellent acting performances right from the start of her film career. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to notice at the time, which may have been her own fault for letting that reputation get out of hand.

This is the very best I have seen her, and her outing here as the doomed murderess is about as good a lead female performance as any to be seen in English films of the 1950s. It is truly amazing that both her performance and this film are not better known. Maybe the Hollywood-made I WANT TO LIVE of two years later ended up stealing this film's thunder, as they both cover the imprisonment and pending death of the protagonist. But only a portion of Susan Hayward's performance takes place inside prison walls, whereas in this film, outside the opening and some flashbacks, the entire story takes place in less than 20 days in a holding cell, perhaps 20 x 25 feet in size, and goes outside it only when the prisoner is allowed out for exercise in a high-walled yard. That there are always two warders taking shifts in the holding cell with Dors, tending to her every need but also imposing a strict regimen upon her, somehow adds to the total claustrophobia of the film, and it is irrepressibly morbid from beginning to end. But it is also terrific! Although the major burden falls on Dors, every performance in the film save one is exceptional, that one being Michael Craig's as her suicidal boyfriend. Craig is a good actor, but he was the wrong choice here, as he simply never really seems like the kind of guy who could be brought to suicide by unrequited love. Lawrence Harvey might have been perfect for it. But the great Yvonne Mitchell, as the youngest warder, is superb. It seems as though, from beginning to end, she has but one expression, which never changes, on her face, yet we see the feelings she is hiding underneath at every moment, and ultimately learn that those feelings are not confined to only the prisoner's situation.

Some reviews have mentioned this film as an indictment of capital punishment, but I don't see it that way, and only once in the entire film is anything said in that direction: One of the warders says that we mustn't forget the person Dors murdered, and another one answers that "...another death will not bring her back". Unlike in the Hayward film, we know right from the beginning that Dors is guilty of this crime, and although to the very end she never repents the murder, we still feel sympathy for her (I felt a lot more for her than for the Hayward character), surely a reaction engendered by the excellent screenplay, Dors' superb performance, and J. Lee Thompson's inventive direction.

Given the budget and the acting talent on view here, I do not see how this film could have possibly been any better, and it should prove a major discovery to anyone now seeing it for the first time.

I just watched this film again after some years and felt very sad and upset at the fate of Mary Hilton. Diana Dors gave a performance of true excellence and power. The setting within the prison cell with the female wardens as supporting players is stark and yet sympathetic . Diana gave a compelling performance and so well were in supported by the rest of the cast especially Yvonne Mitchell and Olga Lindo. I was so very impressed by the entire film. It was a shame that Dors was ignored by the Academy but I suppose in the 50s non-American actresses were not considered as the films were mainly "art house" films. Enjoyed the whole experience.