Yield to the Night (also titled Blonde Sinner in the US) is a 1956 British crime drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Diana Dors. The film is based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Joan Henry. The storyline bears a superficial and coincidental resemblance to the Ruth Ellis case, which had occurred the previous year but subsequent to the release of Henry's novel. The film received much positive critical attention, particularly for the unexpectedly skilled acting of Dors, who had previously been cast solely as a British version of the typical "blonde bombshell". The movie was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. Premise Mary Hilton (Diana Dors) has been convicted of murder and sentenced to hang, and she spends her last weeks in the condemned cell in a British women's prison. While there she remembers the events in her life leading up to the murder. Cast Diana Dors as Mary Hilton Yvonne Mitchell as Matron Hilda MacFarlane Michael Craig as Jim Lancaster Marie Ney as Prison Governess Geoffrey Keen as Prison Chaplain Liam Redmond as Prison Doctor Olga Lindo as Senior Matron Hill Joan Miller as Matron Barker Marjorie Rhodes as Matron Brandon Molly Urquhart as Matron Mason Mary Mackenzie as Matron Maxwell Harry Locke as Fred Hilton Michael Ripper as Roy, bar good-timer Joyce Blair as Doris, storeclerk-friend Charles Clay as Bob Athene Seyler as Miss Bligh Mona Washbourne as Mrs. Thomas, landlady Alec Finter as Mr. Thomas, landlord Mercia Shaw as Lucy Marianne Stone as New Matron Richardson Charles Lloyd-Pack as Mary's Lawyer Dandy Nichols as Mrs. Price John Charlesworth as Alan Price Production The film was based on a book by Joan Henry, a writer and former debutante who had gone to prison. Henry wrote a memoir about her experiences which was filmed as The Weak and the Wicked, directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Diana Dors. Thompson married Henry and they decided to collaborate on another movie. Thompson was anti-capital punishment and wanted to do a story about a man in a death cell. Henry said she could not write about a man but might be able to do it about a woman. "So he really gave me the idea, and then I showed him a plan", she said. The novel of Yield to the Night was published in 1954. The storyline bore some