joe-pearce-1
True "Blonde bombshells" of a starring nature come along only once or twice in a decade, and the number from, say, 1930 to 1960 is not all that many: Jean Harlow, Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe, Diana Dors, Jayne Mansfield, Kim Novak, and that about does it. Of these, Harlow died too young and as an actress was memorable mainly in comedy, Turner turned into a very good actress as the years passed, Monroe was greatly loved but her true acting talent beyond her natural charisma was not really all that great, and Novak was passable. Mansfield was Mansfield. Diana Dors, however, despite her 'blonde bombshell' reputation and being probably the least beautiful of that group (one could hardly call her even very pretty) was a very legitimate actress, out of RADA, and gave excellent acting performances right from the start of her film career. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to notice at the time, which may have been her own fault for letting that reputation get out of hand.This is the very best I have seen her, and her outing here as the doomed murderess is about as good a lead female performance as any to be seen in English films of the 1950s. It is truly amazing that both her performance and this film are not better known. Maybe the Hollywood-made I WANT TO LIVE of two years later ended up stealing this film's thunder, as they both cover the imprisonment and pending death of the protagonist. But only a portion of Susan Hayward's performance takes place inside prison walls, whereas in this film, outside the opening and some flashbacks, the entire story takes place in less than 20 days in a holding cell, perhaps 20 x 25 feet in size, and goes outside it only when the prisoner is allowed out for exercise in a high-walled yard. That there are always two warders taking shifts in the holding cell with Dors, tending to her every need but also imposing a strict regimen upon her, somehow adds to the total claustrophobia of the film, and it is irrepressibly morbid from beginning to end. But it is also terrific! Although the major burden falls on Dors, every performance in the film save one is exceptional, that one being Michael Craig's as her suicidal boyfriend. Craig is a good actor, but he was the wrong choice here, as he simply never really seems like the kind of guy who could be brought to suicide by unrequited love. Lawrence Harvey might have been perfect for it. But the great Yvonne Mitchell, as the youngest warder, is superb. It seems as though, from beginning to end, she has but one expression, which never changes, on her face, yet we see the feelings she is hiding underneath at every moment, and ultimately learn that those feelings are not confined to only the prisoner's situation.Some reviews have mentioned this film as an indictment of capital punishment, but I don't see it that way, and only once in the entire film is anything said in that direction: One of the warders says that we mustn't forget the person Dors murdered, and another one answers that "...another death will not bring her back". Unlike in the Hayward film, we know right from the beginning that Dors is guilty of this crime, and although to the very end she never repents the murder, we still feel sympathy for her (I felt a lot more for her than for the Hayward character), surely a reaction engendered by the excellent screenplay, Dors' superb performance, and J. Lee Thompson's inventive direction. Given the budget and the acting talent on view here, I do not see how this film could have possibly been any better, and it should prove a major discovery to anyone now seeing it for the first time.
David Traversa
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.
Greensleeves
Diana Dors is unforgettable in the role of a murderer condemned to death after shooting her love rival in cold blood. The murder scene comes right at the start of the movie and is shocking in its cold blooded approach. Diana is beautiful and glamorous in the story flashbacks as we see what led up to this terrible act, but for much of the movie we see her in the condemned cell stripped of her glamour. Although she never expresses any regret for what she has done we sympathise with her plight as she is mentally tortured to death before her execution by the pitiless prison regime. The inhumanity of capital punishment is also expressed by the torment that all around her have to go through before the punishment is carried out. Not only relatives and friends but also the people whose job it is to care for her while she is behind bars. The performances all round are superb from the dignity of the Prison Governor played by Marie Ney, the compassion of warder Yvonne Mitchell, the benevolence of prison visitor Athene Seyler and the self pitying mother Dandy Nicholls. Diana's performance is stunning and will haunt you for days after seeing this film and her reading of poetry by A.E. Houseman will linger long in your memory.
