Turn the Key Softly (1954)

Everybody deserves another chance. Newly released from prison, three women face the challenges of reformed life on the "outside". Each have their own plans for moving on with life. The youngest (played by a stunningly beautiful Joan Collins in her first leading film role) is determined to marry a sincere young man with whom she had kept in correspondence. The second one appears to have been innocently convicted due to a shifty boyfriend who left her to take the wrap for the crime he had committed. The third is a sweet little old lady who routinely got convicted of shop lifting. - The film follows all three women through their first day of freedom. Young Joan Collins is excited when her fiancé suggests a very near wedding date. The innocent one finds employment, and the old lady goes back to her modest boarding house where her beloved little dog "Johnnie" was waiting for her return. - Of course there are complication, lots of drama, and a heart breaking ending. The grim realities of early 1950s life in London make for a believable backdrop to the individual character studies. Life was tough, and for single women even tougher. Adding a prison record only adds to the challenge. - I was very much entertained by this film. A simple story told with warmth and empathy. Be sure to have your Kleenex box handy, it's a mushy one!

What an entertaining film! Glamour, thrills, romance, sentimentality. This is a British black and white film noir, if that's the correct description to give it, but it give a clue in the night time robbery scene, the stark prison scenes at the beginning, the clandestine meetings the leading players have in alleyways, etc. The stars all act well, particularly Kathleen Harrison as an old lag who on her release in reunited with Johnny, her little dog, who plays as leading a part as the humans here. Joan Collins in an early glamour role is as striking then as she is now over sixty years later. The leading actress is Yvonne Mitchell and her lover is the villainous Terence Morgan, a part he was adept at playing in the 1950's. I didn't want it to end, and maybe, that's the secret of a great movie, leave 'em wanting more. Films today are often too long and that's why they are rarely great any more. There is a scene where a woman very briefly walks down the stairs past Yvonne Mitchell, and I could swear it was Prunella Scales (from Fawlty Towers) but it was so brief and she's not listed.

This was one of a number of films made at this time arising out of shared experiences of institutions.There were films about Borstal s,Prisons,schools,department stores and police station.In this film we follow the lives of 3 ex women prisoners on the day of their release.The main story is that of Yvonne Mitchell and Terrance Morgan,then there is Joan Collins and finally Kathleen Harrison.The first story is far and away the best and supplies the main climax to the film.Mitchell wants to go straight but is inveigled into a robbery by Morgan.She manages to escape and leave him to his fate.Collins is a good time girl who is enticed into her old ways,probably prostitution,by her old friends.She is going to marry a bus conductor would you believe.Her acting is absolutely awful,and her attempt to speak with a cockney accent is laughable.Can anyone believe a Joan Collins character happily married to a bus conductor.the third story concerns the reliable Kathleen Harrison and her dog Johnny.This is a real shaggy dog story and really the worst of the bunch and which leads to a very contrived finale. The most interesting part of this film is the location work and to be reminded of the way London was in the 50s.Incidentally Collins is shown outside the Leicester Square Theatre,now the Odeon West End.On Tuesday the vandals at Westminster agreed to its demolition so that yet another hotel could be built there.Shame on them.

The full gamut of life in the london of the fifties. Humor and pathos in that delicate british mix that the studios of the day excelled at. The characters are well portrayed particully that played by Kathleen Harrison. A simple tale of three women - released on the same day and time from prison - of vastly different backgrounds, the film basicly revoloves around a dinner engagment proposed and payed for by Yvonne Mitchel. The events prior and post this dinner comprise the body of the film