This movie is for me a very recent discovery and I really loved it. It’s got a strong cast, some really nice camera and lighting work and a gripping plot. ‘Turn The Key Softly’ is a 1953 drama and opens with three women being released from London’s Holloway Prison. The plot follows these women on their first steps on the outside. They are a mixed bunch of individuals, there’s a former prostitute who is trying to go straight and is longing for domesticity with her dependable boyfriend, an upper class woman who was led astray by a lover and was imprisoned for helping him with a theft. The third woman is an elderly person who was sent to prison for shoplifting.

The crux of the plot is seeing these women try to do the right thing and not end up back inside again. One of them struggles with their desires for jewellery and her old life as a working girl, another wants acceptance and her dog and another wants rehabilitation and to put all her mistakes behind her.

I found that I really started to care about the characters in this film and wanted them to not end up back on the game or back in Holloway or lonely. The cast was excellently picked and includes Joan Collins as the former good time girl, Yvonne Mitchell as the upper class woman gone bad and Kathleen Harrison as the elderly shoplifter.

There are a number of twists and turns in the film’s plot and plenty to keep the viewer’s interest. I was really pleased to find this particular movie and I hope that you enjoy it too.