Movie review - "Yield to the Night" (1956) ***

Diana Dors wasn't the greatest actor in the world but is very effective as a woman on death row for killing her lover's lover. She was married and working as a perfume saleslady when she fell for Michael Craig (very good too), who pined over a no-good woman. When she drove him to suicide, Dors decided to get paid back. Dors is married so it's kind of like she gets revenge on the other other woman.

Fascinating on many levels: Dors is the hero but has an adoring husband willing to take her back who she consistently treats like dirt; she clearly killed the woman deliberately (it was a crime of passion but thought-out passion); she threw herself at another man despite being married; she isn't very nice to her mother. Yet you do feel for her - at the end it's clear she doesn't want to die and hates having to go.

J. Lee Thompson's direction is excellent, full of tight pacing and gritty faces, and there are some strong performances from the others. Much of the action is repetitive - another visit from mum, another from the reporter, the prison guards being nice, another visit to the doctor and reverend - but it still grips as it heads towards the execution and the ending packs a wallop.