 |
| Images courtesy of 20th Century Studios |
Before embarking on such historical dramas as A Night to
Remember or science fiction thriller fare with Quatermass and the Pit,
British director Roy Ward Baker in his seventh feature coinciding with his
tenure with 20th Century Fox gave the film world and then-character actress
Marilyn Monroe her first real top star billing role in a light she’s never been
seen in before or since: the 1952 psychological thriller film Don’t Bother
to Knock.
Based on the Charlotte Armstrong novel Mischief from
a year prior, the film adaptation penned by Daniel Taradash transformed the ‘blonde
bombshell’ into a disturbed sociopath in a film that is startlingly well acted
across the board while also being one of the first real psychotic female
babysitter films that invariably paved the way for such hagsploitation fare as
the 1965 Bette Davis starring The Nanny.
An insight into Marilyn Monroe’s dramatic range in a role perhaps closest
to her own offscreen personality, Don’t Bother to Knock proved to be an
important stepping stone in the young actress’ career.
New York based lounge singer Lyn Lesley (Anne Bancroft in
her screen debut) is lamenting the dissolution of her relationship with airline
pilot Jed Towers (Richard Widmark) who just so happens to be checking into the
same McKinley Hotel she’s staying in.
Rebuffing her attacks to his character, the ex-boyfriend retreats to his
room where he notices across his window a pretty young woman in another
apartment building connected to his complex.
Working his way from subtle flirtation to actively seeking the woman
out, he learns her name is Nell Forbes (Marilyn Monroe) and that she’s
babysitting for guests Peter (Jim Backus) and Ruth Jones’ (Lurene Tuttle)
daughter Bunny (Donna Corcoran).
After spending some time with her however, something rings
amiss as she comes down hard with discipline on the little girl (including but
not limited to binding and gagging the child) and can’t seem to keep her
stories straight. Meanwhile her elevator
operating uncle Eddie (Elisha Cook, Jr.) grows tired of Nell’s kleptomaniac and
increasingly dissociative antics and a violent confrontation including but not
limited to heavy ash trays and razor blades ensues that will change the lives
of all three of the principal characters by the time the ordeal is over.
A study of mental illness, displaced deep seated angers and for
Monroe perhaps her most autobiographical personal expression, channeling her
own experiences with her domineering abusive and disturbed mother, Don’t
Bother to Knock while poised as a sleazy sexy thriller winds up being an incomparably
meta film that is as much about the actress’ background as it is a modern
recognition of childhood psychological trauma’s effects on adulthood. While playing on The Girl Next Door trope
involving a sexy yet mysterious neighbor, having Monroe cast in the part gives
the development of the film into a thriller an added layer of authenticity for
how well she portrays a fragile young woman in the throes of madness inflicting
all manner of damage in her wake.
Shot handsomely by Academy Award nominated cinematographer
Lucien Ballard (The Wild Bunch) who gives the ornate expensive hotel a
kind of film noir patina of dark shadows and ominousness lurking, the look of Don’t
Bother to Knock is a bit like The Old Dark House where shadows and
corridors feel ever more threatening with some of the film’s most intense
scenes having a near complete absence of light.
The Jazzy yet sinister noirish score by Lionel Newman who
won the Oscar for Best Score for Hello Dolly! gives the film an offbeat
mixture of seductiveness and danger, like you’re being lured in towards your
death. It goes without saying the
performances across the board by Richard Widmark, Anne Bancroft and Marilyn
Monroe are excellent with Monroe taking center stage as a dangerous psychotic running
steadily amok.
Initially opening to mixed critical reception and modest box
office business with some feeling the role undermined Marilyn Monroe’s blonde
bombshell screen talents, Don’t Bother to Knock didn’t really land with
the public the first time around. Monroe
was still just getting off the ground of bit parts before achieving a
larger-than-life screen goddess status with films like The Seven Year Itch or
Some Like It Hot and her defined screen image wasn’t quite there
yet.
In hindsight, however, the film gets closer to the truth of who
the person Norma Jean was lurking behind the character of Marilyn Monroe,
offering for viewers perhaps the actress’ most honest performance. A testament to her range as an actress, able
to do funny, sexy and in this case scarily deadly, Don’t Bother to Knock is
maybe the closest thing she has done to a horror film that’s as much of a work
of fiction as it is something of a confessional.
--Andrew Kotwicki
