Vintage Pulp

December 7 2024

UNBEARABLE PEINE

If she's lucky it'll hurt for only a moment.

Above is a dark poster for a dark movie—the drama Peine capitale. That translates from French into English as “capital punishment,” which kind of gives away the plot, no? It’s better known as Yield to the Night, as well as Blonde Sinner, and starred Diana Dors as—we suppose this means it counts as a women-in-prison flick—a killer who has a date with the hangman. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1956, but we didn’t want to wait until May to post this great piece, so we’re sharing it today, when the movie went into general release in France. The art is by someone who signed as J. Mayo, but that’s all we have on this person for now, except a few other posters we’ve found. It’s nice work. We especially like the fact that, though Dors is a bit of an abstraction, her lips are exactly correct. Have a look at the bottom of this post.

France, Cannes Film Festival, Peine capitale, Yield to the Night, Blonde Sinner, Diana Dors, J. Mayo, poster art, cinema, women in prison, film noir

Femmes Fatales

June 14 2024

YIELD SIGN

Actually she doesn't even know the meaning of the word slow.

This nice promo image was made for the 1956 drama Yield to the Night starring Diana Dors. She plays a murderess—or murderer, we suppose—on death row. We like the genderized grammar of the past because it seems more elegant, but change happens. Anyway, Dors was an interesting star who, like her trailblazing analog Marilyn Monroe, had sharper filmcraft than she was usually credited with. For our money, by the acting standard of the era Dors was good. But then again, we have terrible grammar, so what do we know?

Yield to the Night, Diana Dors, women in prison

Femmes Fatales

December 5 2023

REVOLVING DORS

Diana takes a turn behind the trigger.

Above: Diana Dors stars in three promo images made for her 1956 drama Yield to the Night, also known as Blonde Sinner, one of her better flicks, we think. We have plenty of Dors in the website, covering both her career and personal life. You can read about Yield to the Night here and here.

Yield to the Night, Blonde Sinner, Diana Dors, women in prison

Vintage Pulp

November 18 2019

BREAKING DOWN DORS

The hangman comes for Britain's top sex symbol.

A while back we showed you a British poster for Diana Dors’ drama Yield to the Night, which tells the story of a woman on death row facing a date with a noose. That poster was a photographic effort. The movie was renamed Blonde Sinner for its U.S. release, and a photo-illustrated poster, which you see above, was issued to promote it. This is a classic piece of movie memorabilia, perfect in every way. After premiering in Great Britain during the summer of 1956 Blonde Sinner opened in the U.S. today that same year.

Blonde Sinner, Yield to the Night, Diana Dors, poster art, cinema, women in prison

Vintage Pulp

November 8 2014

BROWN IS THE NEW BLONDE

Diana Dors dirties her golden locks for another turn as a woman behind bars.

The excellent promo above for Le femme et le rôdeur, aka The Unholy Wife was created by Roger Soubie, one of the best French poster artists of the mid-century period. His art drew us to the movie, which we watched only to discover Diana Dors in identical grime mode as in her prison drama Yield to the Night. Not only do both productions feature Dors locked down with her blonde tresses gone brown due to lack of available dye, but both involve her being on death row for murder. Since The Unholy Wife was the next film she did after Yield to the Night we can only assume her initial foray into crime and incarceration was such a success it needed to be repeated. Like almost exactly. Unfortunately, two visions of a bruise-eyed Dors about to receive state-sponsored revenge were too much for audiences, and her repeat excursion was roundly panned.

And sadly, we must agree. Dors is living in California and is married to a Napa winery baron, but since she’s also sharing her affections with a hot young lover, she soon ponders murdering her unsuspecting hubby for his estate. When we lived in Berkeley, just south of the California wine country, we rarely pondered anything more than sunlit grapes and a nice Schug Syrah. But okay, The Unholy Wife is a film noir, which means Dors is no more happy with her heaven-on-Earth existence than a Wall Street stockbroker is with his untaxable Cayman Islands shadow fortune. Both inexplicably want more. Dors starts the film in prison and tells her story via flashback, so we already know her schemes backfired. If only the same were true for stockbrokers. The Unholy Wife premiered in England in the summer of 1957 and premiered in France today the same year.

France, California, Napa, The Unholy Wife, La femme et le rôdeur, Yield to the Night, Diana Dors, Rod Steiger, Roger Soubie, poster art, cinema, women in prison, movie review

Vintage Pulp

June 14 2011

TWO DIANAS

So, what are you doing on Friday? Being executed? Oh, I see. How about Thursday?

We love this poster for the British-produced prison drama Yield to the Night, aka Blonde Sinner, which is the tale of a woman languishing on death row for committing murder. Diana Dors stars, and before you decide you can’t buy her as a death row inmate, know that she isn’t playing a hardened criminal, but rather a spurned woman who has committed a rash act of passion. As written, the role works fine for the glamorous Dors. In fact, you kind of get two versions of her, the first a platinum-maned knockout, the second a sunken-eyed, dishwater blonde wreck (although the wreck is still quite nice looking, of course). There’s no question of whether her character committed the crime—we see her pull the trigger in the first minutes of the film. The tension derives from whether she will win a reprieve from the death chamber. We won’t tell you. But we will say that for fans of mid-century cinema, this one is a worthwhile expenditure of time. And as a bonus, for fans of mid-century design, the credit graphics are kind of cool. Yield to the Night had its British premiere today in 1956.

Britain, Yield to the Night, Blonde Sinner, Diana Dors, poster art, cinema, women in prison, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 16

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanideâ€”not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juiceâ€”resulting in his death in late 1937.

February 15

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

February 14

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.

February 13

1935—Jury Finds Hauptmann Guilty

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh. Hauptmann is sentenced to death and executed in 1936. For decades, his widow Anna fights to have his named cleared, claiming that Hauptmann did not commit the crime, and was instead a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, but her claims are ultimately dismissed in 1984 after the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to address the case.