Turn the Key Softly is a 1953 British drama film directed by Jack Lee and starring Yvonne Mitchell, Joan Collins, Kathleen Harrison, and Terence Morgan.

Lee and producer Maurice Cowan also wrote the screenplay, based on the 1951 novel of the same title by John Brophy, dealing with the first 24 hours of freedom for three women released on probation from prison on the same morning.

Although she is initially angry that he did not contact her once during her incarceration, he convinces her that the two of them can make a fresh start now that he is gainfully employed as a car salesman.

She takes three pounds, returns George's wallet, then puts her earrings in his pocket, and hurries to meet Bob at Piccadilly Circus.

Monica goes to the theatre with David, only to learn that he plans to rob a safe in a building over the road and wants her to help him, after which they will flee the country with the stolen money.

She does not want to be involved, but he forces her onto the roof and locks the door, making her wait for him while he climbs down a rope ladder and enters a nearby window to rob the safe.

While she is waiting, she manages to find the key, unlock the door and slip back into the theatre, leaving David to be discovered by security and apprehended by police.

Monica is sadly walking home when she sees the dead Mrs Quilliam being stretchered into an ambulance and learns what happened.

[5] Turn the Key Softly received very positive reviews from contemporary critics, who noted with approval its realism and honesty; also its avoidance of the twin pitfalls in a storyline of this nature of either overly sentimentalising its characters or attempting to spice up proceedings with over-the-top melodrama or unnecessary plot twists and digressions.

And, while this examination of the short courses of the lives of three ladies of varying degree after they have left London's Holloway Prison, is not precisely on a heroic scale, the producers have endowed the proceedings with compassion, sensitivity and a modicum of irony.

"[7] Film critic of the Pittsburgh Press, Henry Ward, said: "Turn the Key Softly is the kind of movie that apparently can only be made in Britain.

It is a warm, sympathetic sort of movie that is sentimental without being sticky or maudlin, a well-paced melodrama that never falls back on over-dramatics for effect."