Review - Don't Bother to Knock (1952)

Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) is a film noir about a young woman, Nell (Marilyn Monroe), whose uncle, Eddie (Elisha Cook, Jr.) sets her up as a babysitter for hotel guests, the Jones’ (Jim Backus and Lurene Tuttle), watching over their daughter, Bunny (Donna Corcoran). Meanwhile, airline pilot Jed (Richard Widmark), who was dumped by is girlfriend, Lyn (Ann Bancroft), earlier in the evening, begins to flirt with Nell. Chaos ensues, along with bad things. And yes, this film is more of a psychological thriller and character study.

)
Don't Bother to Knock poster - IMDB

There is a lot to like about this film, and it is also somewhat disturbing in the themes of insanity and suicide which it tackles. The suspense builds as we slowly learn more about Nell and that she has serious psychological problems stemming from her past. Bringing this on slowly builds the suspense, and Jed has to figure out how to extract himself from a bad situation, and realizes that, perhaps, he really is in love with Lyn. For Jed, it is a bit of Joseph Campbell’s “The Heroes Journey” as he learns about himself as well.

The mainline cast from top billed Widmark and Monroe, to the various supporting actors including Cook (a long time favorite character actor of mine whom I have mentioned in other posts), and Corcoran as the young girl are all rock solid and convincing. Marilyn Monroe was creepily good at playing the psycho, and in some ways did so better than Jason Momoa in Fast X, although I bet he had a lot more fun with the role than Monroe did.

Sadly, we don’t see a lot of Jim Backus in this film, which is probably the only downside to it. However, what little we see of Backus is a fairly straightforward role in the few scenes he is in.

Overall, a darn good film, albeit somewhat predictable in the action, but not completely, with some bits setting up an expectation of tragedy to be hit with a switch from tragedy to only near tragedy. I don’t want to tip off too much off this, spoilers. A lot of familiar faces in the cast, including some I haven’t mentioned, and well produced.

This is my first post in several weeks having just returned from a long road trip with my family to visit my mom in Oregon, and doing some side-trip touring about, and I apologize for the brevity of my review. Don’t Bother to Knock is worth checking out if you are into psycho/noir thriller type films. Both the Bonnie Bride and I enjoyed it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Posted using CineTV