Yield to the Night
There is an old saying: act in haste, repent in leisure. For Mary Hilton, convicted of the murder of Lucy Carpenter whom she shot several times outside her mews apartment in front of multiple witnesses, the act took only seconds to perform but the thought had been in her mind for weeks and the consequences will last the rest of her short life.
The judge describing it as premeditated murder rather than an act of passion, of momentary madness, Mary was sentenced to death, and now waits in her cell for the footsteps on the stone floor to tell her she has a visitor, or that a reprieve has been granted and she instead faces a life sentence, or that the date of her last night on Earth has been decided.
Guarded day and night by two wardens, they ensure that Mary continues to eat and drink and wash and dress and exercise in the prison grounds and that she has no opportunity to hurt herself, tending to her blistered heel and her headaches, that she will be fit and healthy when she is walked to the gallows, and in the meantime all Mary can do is wait and remember.
Released in the summer of 1956, Yield to the Night was directed by Ice Cold in Alex’s J Lee Thomson from a script co-written by John Cresswell and romantic novelist Joan Henry, based on her 1954 novel of the same name; a socialite who had fallen on hard times, in 1951 Henry had spent time in prison for fraud, that experience the basis for Who Lie in Gaol, her semi-autobiographical depiction of and plea for reform of the harsh conditions and neglect suffered by inmates, filmed by Thomson as The Weak and the Wicked.
Already a star, Yield to the Night was a departure for Diana Dors, an iconic blonde of British cinema who had never before been offered a substantial dramatic role; seen in flashback as Mary she is bubbly, loving, desirable and confident, but as prisoner 6435 that veneer is stripped as bare as her cell walls and the colour of her pulled-back hair, denied even the comfort of darkness as she waits.
Written before but released after the notorious case of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain, here Yield to the Night was given an X certificate while in America it was given the title Blonde Sinner, distracting from its intention to challenge with difficult questions of the morality of capital punishment, and as the film progresses the audience comes to understand that the impulse which drove Mary was more complex than the common jealousy the opening scene implies.
Remastered in 4K from the original camera negative shot by A Hard Day’s Night‘s Gilbert Taylor, the London of memory is effortlessly cool and stylish while the prison scenes focus on the internalised Dors, Yvonne Mitchell as the guard who guides Mary towards acceptance of the inevitable and Athene Seyler as prison visitor Miss Bligh, an older woman who dedicates herself to kindness and empathy for the unfortunate.
With archive footage of the stars at the premiere and Dors discussing the film and the opportunity it afforded her, “something I waited for many, many years,” a new interview with co-star Michael Craig discusses his friendship with Dors and the weight of the subject matter while film historian Melanie Williams offers historical and artistic context.
Yield to the Night will be available on Blu-ray and DVD from StudioCanal from Monday 12th October
