2 August 2013: Yield to the Night

Released a year after her execution, this stylised and highly claustrophobic anti-hanging film bears a high resemblance to the Ellis case - a link that was denied by the film-makers at the time. Watching it, and having read the opening chapter of "A Fine Day For A Hanging', it's easy to see the association; Diana Dors plays Mary Hilton, a young blonde woman convicted of murder and condemned to hang for murder by shooting a person to death... Sounding familiar? Also the murder was motivated by passion - although the victim here is female, love-rival Lucy Carpenter, the cause of death of Hilton's object of affection, Jim Lancaster.

Photographed in steely monochrome and directed by J. Lee Thompson (The Yellow Balloon), the film, while sometimes melodramatic, is highly compelling and increasingly harrowing, mainly set in Hilton's cell as she recalls the events that led to her incarceration. Thompson uses the image of the single, unshaded light bulb as a recurring motif throughout the film, which references the Ellis case; Ruth complained about the light to the wardens who kindly fashioned a lampshade out of card for her comfort (strictly against regulations!). The film also explores the relationship between Hilton and her wardens, particularly Matron MacFarlane (Yvonne Mitchell). The scene between the two women where MacFarlane builds a house of cards during their conversation only to destroy it at the end serves to symbolise Hilton's predicament; hope for reprieve, precariously built, can be so easily dashed.

The film also marked an acting departure for the young Diana Dors, hitherto playing glamorous roles given her 'British Marilyn' status, here dulled down and haggard in her prison scenes. She brings a steely-eyed intensity to her role, a side of her that I have never seen before, a performance she hoped would make her be taken seriously as an actress. The scenes which feature her in close-up, face directed to camera while her voice-over exposes her inner turmoil are some of the most effective in the film. Dors discovered she was pregnant when Yield To The Night announced, but she knew this would be an opportunity that she simply couldn't put aside; consequently, she opted for abortion and not for the first time either.

The film was released in the US with the the rather more sensational title 'Blonde Sinner" (and check out the promotional poster below), obviously playing on the overt sexuality of its star. The strap line 'The Man-By-Man Story Of A Lost Soul!' is somewhat misleading and I should imagine that stateside audiences may have felt rather disappointed by the intense prison drama before them, when they were expecting a blonde-fuelled raunch-fest.

Yield To The Night was nominated for three BAFTAs and the Palme d'Or for J. Lee Thompson at Cannes in 1956.

30 July 2013 - Lady Godiva Rides Again & The Yellow Balloon

Ruth Ellis's one and only, blink-and-you'll miss her, appearance on film was in the 1951 comedy Lady Godiva Rides Again (known as Bikini Baby in the States). I must have blinked as I did miss her (and Joan Collins in her debut too). Mind you, it's not easy trying to ascertain detail on an iPad mini screen. The film itself is quite entertaining, wittily written by John Dighton and Val Valentine and briskly directed by Frank Launder, he of the St Trinian's series fame. Most notably there is a fabulously sassy performance by the young Diana Dors as 'Delores August', a confident young beauty queen (and god knows the film needs it as the main character, Pauline Stroud's Marjorie Clark is a bit of a whiny drip). There is also a very funny cameo from the always brilliant Dora Bryan.

There's a rather dark edge to the comic proceedings though, with all these nubile youngsters being constantly peered over or seemingly procured by lecherous old men, the promise of a career in films (or at least an 'expensive looking' mink coat) on offer for... well, who knows. Watching the film in parallel to reading 'A Fine Day For A Hanging' it becomes ever more apparent why young women would turn to this seemingly glamorous lifestyle, in order to escape the endless austerity of post-war Britain. Ellis herself posed for risqué photographs for the Camera Club, knowing that she had what it took to raise male interest (so to speak). Her ambition even prompted her to change her appearance, from brunette to peroxide blonde in keeping with the 'blonde bombshell' look of the period's starlets - Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Dors herself. It reminds me of the line in Whittington's play, where Ruth taps her newly-blonde locks and utter the single line: "Hollywood". 

In order to get a feel for the atmospherics of London in the early 1950s, I have queued up a list of films produced and filmed in the capital at that time on LoveFilm. A DVD set called The London Collection was available, which the 1953 film The Yellow Balloon was part of. I had absolutely no idea what this film was about - perhaps some breezy children's caper set in the bombed out shells of London buildings. It certainly sets out that way, with a poor-but-happy domestic setting established and a jolly incidental score tripping lightly in the background. But boy does it turn dark - quickly and quite shockingly. And it gets darker from there on in, with the young protagonist Frankie (Andrew Ray) falling in and with and manipulated the rather unpleasant low-life Ray (a creeped out performance by William Sylvester). The theme of darkness persists right up to the finale, it's tense, noir-ish events playing out in an abandoned, bombed out Underground station. As with Lady Godiva Rides Again, the sense of austerity pervades the film, and the question of the effect it has on youth hangs in the air; the former lightheartedly suggesting young girls entering into what is essentially a form of prostitution, the latter a young boy inadvertently drawn toward the thrill of petty crime. It's an interesting period in our not-so-distant history, one that I am intrigued to discover more about.

On a separate (more trivial) note, this journey into the world of Ruth Ellis has brought to my attention certain links and connections. For example, Ellis appeared in Lady Godiva Rides Again featuring Diana Dors. Dors appeared in the film Yield To The Night, allegedly based on the Ruth Ellis story, directed by J. Lee Thompson. J. Lee Thompson was a prolific director in the UK, whose films included - 

The Yellow Balloon.

Creepy, huh?