Meu Amor, Minha Ruína

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.

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.

France made "nous sommes tous des assassins " (André Cayatte, 1951) The US made "I want to live" (Robert Wise ,1958) The UK made "yield to the night " (the ridiculous alternate title "blonde sinner" should be forgotten )

The three movies were candid indictment against death penalty ; Diana Dors, cast against type, compares favourably with Susan Hayward in the American movie. The luminous blond sex symbol in the flashbacks becomes a broken woman , with a premature aged face in jail: a stunning metamorphosis .

These flashbacks are kept to the minimum ,but well introduced into the story ; most of the time is given over to a convict who got the capital punishment in her cell in which she's never left alone (for fear she might take her own life?)and where they never turn off the light (hence the deeply moving title ). Lots of voice over make sense ; the waiting is the hardest time ,when the prison governor can any hour now bring you your pardon or your hanging ("I can recognize her steps ".In France, condemned men would never know which day they would be guillotined and in the small hours,they were listening closely by the door the steps , all this is shown in Cayatte's movie which was the first attempt in the world to rebel against the horrible death ceremony .

What's the point of healing your ankle , catching a cold or learning to play chess when your days are numbered? The wardens are compassionate ,but except for one of them who's just lost her mom , they are not able to relate to such a horrible fate .What's the point of eating ? of having a good night sleep? What's the point of anything?All is pathetic, the only real thing is that door , behind which....

It's not Jack Lee Thompson's usual style ,and I was skeptic about his treatment of an intimate subject ;but I 've got to make amends ;He brilliantly succeeds :the very last scene, notably ,is a model of simplicity and restrained emotion.

Based on a true story ;a must,as the two other movies I mention are.

Mesmerizing from beginning to end. Black and white photography, impeccable, giving you the feeling of the scene just by placing the camera in a position that exactly will tell you before hand what's coming. Amazing.

And then there is the actress.

She, unlike ANY actress of that period, appears most of the time with her face washed up and her hair with 4 inches of black roots, totally unconcerned with her looks for the camera, but she is ACTING. She is acting a storm, what an excellent actress!!

In the flash backs the actress becomes DIANA DORS... Fully done with platinum hair, made up to kill and slipped into a dress too tight to believe, it could be painted on her naked body.

The story takes its time to develop and little by little it starts building up the tension of her character. The timing is perfect, we get more and more involved with her suffering and waiting as anxiously as herself about her destiny.

I don't have words to tell you what a superb movie this is, a film that I think will be impossible to produce nowadays, maybe Charlize Theron came close to this type of character in "Monster", but the feeling of the movie is totally different, the results of the 50s are the results of a civilization gone with the wind.

To me, this movie is a masterpiece.

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.