DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK

Director: Roy Ward Baker
Stars: Richard Widmark, Marilyn Monroe, Anne Bancroft, Elisha Cook Jr.
Year: 1952
Rating: N/R

Always running hot and cold on Marilyn Monroe as an actress, over the years I've seen her more as a tragic Hollywood story; a naive, talented and smart woman marketed as the ultimate blond bombshell, ultimately used up (and done in) by the industry - little more.

Don't Bother to Knock both changed and confirmed my impressions of one of Hollywood's most famous icons. Confirmed because, having finally seen this 1952 suspense story, I was more than ever reminded (especially in regards to the film's plotline) that Monroe was a vulnerable "babe in the woods" in the business; who couldn't handle her fame or the pressures of being such a huge star emotionally. Changed, however, because one thing becomes very damned clear from watching this film: Marilyn Monroe was a talented - even gifted - dramatic actress. God knows, had she not been shoved into the witless, well-endowed glamazon persona by filmmakers of her time, where her career could have gone. But this film gives you a clue, because she's absolutely riveting in it. Richard Widmark may have been given top billing, but within ten minutes of watching it becomes quite clear that this is Monroe's film.

Without her, the whole thing would almost play more like a short TV-movie; the film is well-paced and certainly suspenseful, if not a bit over-the-top dramatically. But Monroe holds it all together, and turns the story of mentally unstable babysitter Nell Forbes into a tense, Hitchockian-like tale in which you never quite know what her character will do next.

The plot is simple: Nell Forbes (Monroe) is a young woman who's just moved to New York City. She lives with her Uncle Eddie (Elisha Cook Jr.), who is an elevator operator in a fairly upscale Manhattan hotel - and on this night, Eddie has gotten Nell a job babysitting for a ten-year-old girl named Bunny, while the child's parents attend a function downstairs in the ballroom. From the beginning, Nell seems a shy, withdrawn - even slightly strange, her voice quiet and eyes like a deer caught in someone's headlights. And, in fact, soon as Eddie and Bunny's parents are gone - the little girl safely tucked into her room next door for the night - Nell indeed starts exhibiting some odd behavior, like trying on the jewelry and clothing of Bunny's mother, making herself that much at home.

Meanwhile, downstairs in the lounge, pilot Jed Towers (Widmark), who lives at the hotel, is confronting singer Lyn Lesley (Anne Bancroft, both wonderful and truly stunning here) because she's just broken off their relationship with a "Dear John"-type letter. Lyn's reasons, when pushed to give one, is simple: Jed is nice and fun and all, but there is a coldness about him; an inability to really care about other people, deep down. Bitter and disgusted by her dismissal of him, Jed hurries back upstairs to drink himself to sleep - when, through the open blinds of his hotel room, he spots Nell in the room she's in across the way.

Flirtation brings the two together - but not before Eddie has come back and confronted Nell with her indiscretions regarding Bunny's mom's jewelry and clothes. Nell apologies, and here for the first time we get clued in to the fact that she's not well mentally; that her move to NYC was for a new start in breaking away from a very troubled past.

Eddie's gone by the time Jed shows up, Nell telling him all kinds of lies about who she is and why she's at the hotel. And as it becomes more and more clear that Nell's sanity is deteriorating before our eyes, out comes little Bunny, shattering all of the baby sitter's stories ... and, suddenly, proving herself a threat to the psychotic Nell. A threat that must be dealt with.

Monroe's beauty is always arresting to the camera - but here, it's her rock-solid, very understated and beautifully done performance that will blow you away. She's absolutely childlike with vulnerability in some scenes ... while in others, unnerving and creepy and tense; again, you sometimes literally never know what she's going to do - of know she's capable of doing anything. It's a sensational job of real acting, which again will make you wonder just how well-respected an actress she might have been in dramatic roles, had she been given more of a chance beyond the few she was able to play.

Either way, if you're like me, Don't Bother to Knock will give you a new respect for the blond bombshell - who, under that hair and face and body, was so immeasurably much more. The film's a damned good suspense thriller, too, because of her. **** - Reel Awesome