She was called “The British Marilyn Monroe,” but in fact, in very telling ways, their paths and personas were quite diverse. The difference conveys some important truths about Diana Dors’s society of Britain, one that was more class-based, and Marilyn’s America, hell-bent in the 1950s on erasing any traces of class consciousness.
Both came to prominence in the oversexed—because in actuality horribly repressed—middle and late 1950s where misogynist terms like “sexpot” and “bombshell” were applied to any actress (though not to actors) who gave off even a whiff of sexual liberty. With Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), this aspect of her persona was seen as part of her naïve charm. With Dors (1931-1984), it was part of a “bad girl” image from which she never strayed. She truly maintained, as a critic once described Richard Widmark, who often portrayed seedy low-lifes, “the courage of her own sordid convictions.”
Yet underneath the tawdry image, in her British noirs of the period (The Long Haul, Tread Softly Stranger, Passport to Shame, all available for free on YouTube), was an acute identification with her working-class roots and with the pain as well as the solidarity that an exploitative class society often engendered. These films in which she had a prominent role in the late 1950s were the precursors to the wholescale entry of working-class characters into the British cinema in the early 1960s with what was called the “Angry Young Man” or the “Kitchen Sink” films—because they often featured working-class figures lurking around those sinks–beginning with Richard Burton in Look Back in Anger and featuring Karel Reisz’s majestic Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.
Marilyn Monroe as working-class entertainer in Otto Preminger’s‘River of No Return’
Marilyn had a different trajectory. She too had a humble working-class background and in her early films—John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle, Roy Ward Baker’s Don’t Bother to Knock and Otto Preminger’s River of No Return—she was often a set-upon outsider who still managed to maintain her innocence. But something happened around 1954, when she moved to New York and started studying at the Actors Studio, which nearly ruined the authentic quality she brought to her early roles. Once she became an “aactrice” and started “aacting” she began to conceal all aspects of her aactual roots and moved toward becoming an unmoored icon in a ’50s America that claimed to have abolished all class distinctions in the victory of capitalism. The low point of this second phase was 1956’s Bus Stop, torn from the condescending New York stage, where she plays a bar singer who falls for a rodeo cowboy (Don Murray). Both are seen as nearly sub-human, so inarticulate they can hardly communicate, and the “aactrice” Marilyn is happy to dumb down her character as she helps throw an upper-middle-class elite gaze on working people.
Dors confined to a repressive reformatory in ‘Good-Time Girl’
Dors was the quintessential “bad girl”—a 1940s label for women who breached the social code and sought independence—almost from her moment of entering the British film industry in 1948’s Good-Time Girl, about a rambunctious teen who breaks society’s rules and shows no remorse for doing so. After being condemned to a cruel women’s boarding house, and being a victim of a lascivious father, she breaks out, eventually led astray and into serious crime by first a gangster and then two hardened American servicemen. What is supposed to be a morality tale about the dangers of taking wrong turns, that is, defying a society with rigid rules for its working-class women, instead through Dors’s refusal to radiate guilt, turns her tragedy into triumph.
She then partially tried to reform and become a more standard blonde heroine, but that part of her persona never took. She instead went from brash prison inmate in The Weak and the Wicked to 1956’s Yield to the Night, an intensely sympathetic portrayal of a woman in her last days, condemned to death for the murder of an abusive husband. In its branding of capital punishment as the actual crime inflicted by the state on female victims, that film shared the limelight with the American I Want To Live, done two years later, another meticulously sculpted portrayal of the sadism of the state’s death sentence against, this time, a powerfully resilient Susan Hayward. Dors was lauded for her role at that year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Dors was then offered a contract with RKO in the U.S., and her persona was immediately altered by John Farrow and Jonathan Latimore, the director and screenwriter of The Big Clock, to first bad girl and then repentant sinner in The Unholy Wife. She is saddled with a 1950s “loving,” but actually coercive, arrogant, moralistic Napa Valley wine merchant Rod Steiger, who can only think of their child which his wife never wanted. Had it been made today, the film might have been called The Unhappy Wife, as in the end Dors is stripped of her platinum blonde hair and as a bowed brunette awaiting the electric chair she repents and finds religion.
Dors trying to break free of a gangster with trucker Mature in the background.
That film, which strayed so far from her persona, was not a success. Perhaps the best thing that happened to her was that she returned to Britain and starred in three remarkable noirs. The first was The Long Haul, about a crucial sector of British working-class employment, the trucking industry. Victor Mature, his hard-bitten face here still able to convey longing before he consumed himself in an alcoholic frenzy, stars as an American vet who signs on to a transport company run by a gangster. Dors is the at first equally hard-bitten gangster’s moll who instead falls in love with family man Mature, but eventually cedes her place with him and returns him to his family as she consigns herself back to her former captivity as a club girl at the Congo Club. She is both seductive and in the end also attuned to Mature’s wife and child. Her meeting with them is presented not as submission to bourgeois morality but as solidarity in her recognition of their importance. This film and Hell Drivers, about the same industry, are almost a direct line to the British working-class cinema that will follow (outlined in my chapter on British Film in Class, Crime and International Film Noir).
Next comes perhaps the best of this trio, at least in terms of Dors’ persona. In Tread Softly Stranger, she comes between two brothers in one of the bastions of the British working class, the northern Yorkshire steel town of Parkgate. The film features extensive on-location shots of the factory which one of the brothers, an accountant, intends to rob. Dors’s character Calico, at first a kind of freeloading sexual user, is pushing for the robbery and seems to be nothing but a “gold digger”—a ’30s pejorative term for women seeking some level of financial independence—as she instead falls for the accountant Dave’s older brother Johnny, an itinerant debt-ridden gambler returned home from London to hide. When the crime unravels, though, Johnny charges her with exploiting men: “Doesn’t anybody mean anything to you?”
She answers with a remarkable monologue which softens and makes understandable her path, and which is not only her character’s story but also partially autobiographical:
Dors in the working-class bastion of Yorkshire in ‘Tread Softly Stranger’
“I come from a slum, from the gutter where it’s quite a step up even to the pavement. I never had a home. I never had a father my mother could put a name to. I never had a thing till one day I found I was attractive to the opposite sex. My legs could be used for something other than to stand on. I had one talent—most people haven’t got any—so I used that talent and I got tough.”
She then says she never loved anyone until Johnny, so in her mind she was never unfaithful but that she is faithful to him. The monologue is a clever deconstruction of the exploitative personality she was forced to adopt and her struggle to escape it. She will wait for Johnny, and this becomes the fullest expression of the pain behind the “bombshell” persona perhaps ever in the cinema.
Finally, in Passport to Shame, Dors has the secondary role as a hardened sex-worker in a house of prostitution in charge of overseeing the initiation of a new recruit. The ingenue, though, falls for a taxi driver who eventually exhorts his buddies in the cab company to rescue the her. Dors also falls for a not particularly handsome, but very sympathetic cab driver friend of the lead character, helps participate in the rescue, and leaves with her new friend. Again, a film where her persona as hardened exploiter gives way to someone who returns to her working-class roots, to male-female solidarity instead of cutthroat exploitation of each by the other. She rejects the pull of the glamour of capitalist society, whose promise of material well-being is in the end seen as empty.
Diana Dors had a remarkable career. Particularly in the late ’50s, at a time when Hollywood was simply full of beauties for their own sake personified by Marilyn Monroe, she helped cast a new light on the working-class origins of these characters which went a ways toward their ultimate dissolution while also branding her as a working class woman of the cinema par excellence. Perhaps it’s the reason why her performances are now almost forgotten.
Few things infuriate MMA fans more than a fight being scored incorrectly, though the term “robbery” tends to be thrown around carelessly and is often steeped in bias. With Robbery Review, we’ll take a look back at controversial fights and determine whether the judges were rightly criticized for their decision or if pundits need to examine their own knee-jerk reactions.
Arlovski picked up UFC win No. 23 in the co-main event of UFC Vegas 53 on Saturday, moving him into a tie for the most victories in promotional history with Donald Cerrone and Jim Miller. It wasn’t exactly an emphatic win as he had to sneak past a game Jake Collier, and while the former UFC heavyweight champion’s peers were happy for him, even they had to admit that the judges might have done him a favor.
Just like that, the ageless heavyweight GOAT finds himself on a four-fight win streak with wins in six of his past seven fights, his lone loss during that stretch to British star Tom Aspinall. Simply put, if you go to the scorecards with Arlovski these days, there’s a very good chance the fight won’t go your way. Frankly, we’re thinking of implementing a rule where if you’re a UFC heavyweight that can’t definitively beat the 43-year-old Arlovski, then going the distance with him means you automatically lose.
In reality, no such rule exists and Collier would probably like to have this decision reviewed. He’s in luck, because that’s exactly what we do around here. So fire up the Robbery Review film room and let’s go to work.
What was the official result?
Andrei Arlovski def. Jake Collier via split decision.
How did the fight go?
Props to Jake Collier right out of the gate for doing everything in his power to not just accept that this is an Andrei Arlovski fight. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most Arlovski-ish, this fight is probably a six at best; which is to say that the fight turned out to be entertaining as opposed to a slog and Collier was actually able to execute some of his usual techniques.
Collier bullied his way in right away, but Arlovski refused to give up an early takedown. Lots of ineffectual striking in the clinch to start. When they separate, Collier gets a couple of leg kicks to land. It’s not much, but Collier had at least done something through the first two minutes while Arlovski had done very little. Collier started stringing together some combinations on a retreating Arlovski, who responded with a few good counters. We got a break in the action due to a clash of heads and that’s the last time I’ll mention it because it happened a bunch more times throughout the fight and both fighters were to blame.
A beautiful elbow inside cut Arlovski across the bridge of his nose and that was the best strike of Round 1. Arlovski shook it off and went back to his counter-heavy game plan while Collier continued to stalk him.
Round 2 is one I imagine most fans had difficulty scoring as there was plenty of good leather being traded. The volume was unquestionably in Collier’s favor, but Arlovski was sharp with his counters. As Dominick Cruz pointed out on commentary, Arlovski slipped in a lot of accurate punches in between Collier’s offensive bursts. Collier finally scored a takedown in this round as well, but he didn’t do much damage off of it. They ended the round trading punches.
Collier had a fast start to Round 3 as he was landing and backing Arlovski up. He had a nice jab going throughout the fight, he just got into trouble when he followed up too aggressively and left himself open to Arlovski’s counters. Arlovski had some success scoring with straight punches from distance too, but nothing he threw kept Collier from advancing and scoring. Arlovski’s chin was definitely put to the test in this one. More hard shots from Collier in the final 30 seconds and he even gets a takedown, which Cruz says should steal the round for Collier, which isn’t a thing.
All three judges gave the first round to Collier. Crosby and D’Amato gave Rounds 2 and 3 to Arlovski for the win.
After the decision was announced, Collier exited the cage in what appeared to be a show of frustration, but he later clarified the situation on Twitter.
Clarify, it looked like I walked away from @AndreiArlovski at then end of the like a poor sport, I was told to leave the cage, then to go back and he was in an interview. I'd never disrespect an opponent like that, let alone a legend who I have the utmost respect for#UFCVegas53
The significant strike count tells us that this was a close fight as Collier narrowly edged out Arlovski 93-91. Going round by round, the stats go even more against the argument for a robbery as Collier won Round 1 25-20, Arlovski won Round 2 39-36, and Round 3 was a tie at 32-32.
In Collier’s favor is the total head strike count (77-66), which is typically a better indicator of who is doing the more relevant damage. Arlovski had the edge in body strikes (15-7) and a narrow edge in leg strikes (10-9).
Collier was successful on two out of three takedown attempts, but did not land a single ground strike throughout the bout, so those takedowns should essentially be ignored in regards to scoring.
What did the media say?
Collier won.
All 14 media scores posted on MMA Decisions are for Collier, with six of those scores giving him a 30-27 win.
Fans on MMA Decisions agree with the media as the top two options are for Collier and combine for almost 81 percent of the vote (44.8 percent for 30-27 Collier, 35.9 percent for 29-28 Collier).
Round 1 was a clear 10-9 for Collier at 91.8 percent, while Round 2 was close with 10-9 Collier garnering 52.7 percent of the vote. A 10-9 for Collier in Round 3 comes in at 79.7 percent.
Over on the Verdict MMA app, the scoring actually has this one pretty close, but Rounds 1 and 3 are firmly in Collier’s favor.
This is literally the closest title fight in the history of Verdict.
That scoring system takes the cumulative total of every submitted fan score (filtering out aberrant scores like random 10-7s if they comprise less than one percent of the total) in every round and divides by the amount of submitted scores to determine the winner of each round and also in totality.
Due to Arlovski winning the second, the final score only comes out to 28.82 to 28.24 for Collier. However, he won Rounds 1 and 3 by 45 points each, so even if there’s no dispute over Arlovski winning Round 2, just going by how we actually score fights that’s an easy two rounds to Collier according to Verdict MMA voters.
How did I score it?
The official stats definitely surprised me here as I saw Collier outworking Arlovski on both of my viewings. But this is one situation where I’m trusting my eyes over the numbers and you should too.
Collier didn’t just press the action in this one, he landed clean shots and had Arlovski fighting ineffectively off of his back foot on multiple occasions. If Arlovski had 20 significant strikes in the first half, a lot of those had to be clearing the bare minimum to be counted in that category. So that’s Round 1 out of the way.
Round 2 I scored for Arlovski as I felt that he took advantage of Collier’s lackluster defense. Collier is such a fun heavyweight to watch because of his go-for-broke style, but it definitely cost him a round here as he walked straight into impactful counter punches. On the other hand, he also landed plenty so there’s a case to be made for Collier. A close round that I gave to Arlovski by a small margin.
As for Round 3, see my notes for Round 1 and 2. Yes, I’d like to see Collier not get hit so much; no, I don’t believe Arlovski landed as often or as consistently as Collier. Maybe it’s because Arlovski showed so much toughness that the judges saw fit to give him this round, but it’s not Collier’s fault that Arlovski is just able to eat combinations and might actually be immortal at this point.
Collier came forward and was effective doing so. That’s a win for me.
Was it a robbery?
Look, it was a competitive and enjoyable fight, but this is a case where the judges have to be able to distinguish between who is driving the offense and who is just hanging in there. It’s Collier who was the better striker in Round 1 and Collier who pressed the action in Round 3.
If you’re wondering why it matters who pressed the action, this is where the stats actually can help us so long as we factor in the criteria. Let us never forget that octagon control and aggression are secondary to damage and shouldn’t be brought up unless necessary; however, if you bring up the dead-even official Round 3 stats, then you have to give Collier that round based on that secondary criteria. That doesn’t matter to me because I gave Collier that round on effective striking alone, but if you need to go to octagon control as your decider then that’s even more clearly in Collier’s favor.
We all love seeing Arlovski win, but that’s a joy we should have been deprived of Saturday if the judges had gotten it right.
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