Yield to the Night (1956)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

hyped garbage

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

I don't have overly much to add to the other excellent reviews here (esp. Joe Pearce's) except to say this is a surprisingly good film, and Dors has a rare opportunity to shine as an actress in a role that has more to offer her than normal.Well worth watching, this, whether or not you draw parallels with the Ruth Ellis case or sympathise with the posture regarding capital punishment.

Who doesn't like a good I shot someone, got caught and went to prison movie? Here the focus is on life leading up to possibly death for the one who committed the murder and of course the story enfolds for us to take-in what drove her to it. Love was the power and some really strong passion is what we find out. In that heat of the moment where all the senses are dulled or in denial, strange things can happen and do and here is an example of one of them. In an emotional state human beings say or do certain things that even they wonder why after the fact. The prisons are full of people who acted this out. Here, it is a woman being prepared for the death penalty and we go through the countdown with her. Will she be pardoned? Will she keep her cool or go nuts? Will she go free i.e. life in prison which is a type of living death? The movie makes and takes the point right to the end. One thing that caught my attention is that they had two matrons with this condemned woman at all times night or day recording everything she does in the same room. They make her eat, sleep, take walks and console her forcing her to get up and get dressed too. She also gets 24 hour medical and has a Pastor on standby too. I suppose this is normal for death watch procedures but done differently in different countries. Interesting to watch that interaction as well. Decent movie that helps to display all the range of human emotions for a situation like this and leading up to it too. Watch, snack and ...

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.

The pompous dirigible Jean-Luc Godard ,like most French movie directors a man utterly in love with himself,or at least ,the idea of himself ,once said that all you really needed to make a movie were " a girl and a gun"At the opening of this movie it looks as if the makers had taken his dictum literally for that is precisely what we get.The girl is Mary Hutton (Diana Dors) and she pulls a gun from her handbag and shoots a man to death ,one she blames for her lover's suicide .It is an open and shut case -she is placed on trial for murder and sentenced to death by hanging .The majority of the movie takes place in her condemned cell as she waits the outcome of her appeal and relives the doomed affair with lover Jim (Michael Craig) What sets the movie apart from its Hollywood sister "I Want to Live"from a couple of years later is that unlike Susan Hayward in that movie Mary Hutton is quite obviously guilty -her case is not a miscarriage of justice and there is no special pleading in the way the movie sets out to make its anti-capital punishment case .For make no bones about it, this is an abolitionist propaganda piece .Despite her clear and palpable guilt the movie insists that hanging is just plain wrong . J lee Thompson shows an absurdity to things as the wardens set about trying to keep her occupied -they teach her chess ,pass the time in meaningless chit chat and ensure she is healthy enough to be hung in a week or so .The style is not ,as you might expect ,documentary but shows the influence of German Expressionism in its use of extreme close-ups,and oblique camera angles .It deftly suggests the disorientation of someone who may be about to die by order of the state in a premeditated and planned manner Much was made at the time of its similarity to an actual murder case -that of Ruth Ellis,the last woman to be hung in Britain .Both Ellis and Mary in the movie were blondes ,both shot men who had done them wrong .This is coincidence nothing more as the script was written two years prior to the Ellis case and the release of the movie at the time the Ellis case was generating publicity was an accident .Dors is sensational in the role .A flamboyant publicity conscious starlet she declared herself with this movie to be powerhouse actress unafraid to present an appearance devoid of her usual glamour ,letting her dyed hair grow out to show dark at the roots and discarding the revealing gowns of the publicity machine for unflattering prison wear .Its a powerful piece of work and all involved in its making did good work .I am still a pro-hanger but I do admire the honesty and integrity of this movie .its not enjoyable but it is potent