Don't Bother to Knock

Story

An elderly couple, the Ballews, are unable to book a room at the McKinley Hotel due to a large convention. A woman, Lyn Lesley (Anne Bancroft), sits alone at the bar, deep in thought, wondering if her beau will stop to see her after she wrote him a letter breaking it off. Then the lights grow dim, and she raises a microphone to sing a song, leaving her bar seat to sing with the band.

In another hotel room, Jed Towers (Richard Widmark) rests on his bed, smoking. Then rising, looking worried, he begins pacing around. He starts to tie a tie, then abruptly throws it down as he picks up Lyn’s breakup letter, tearing it up.

A beautiful blonde, Nell Forbes (Marilyn Monroe), tentatively enters the McKinley. Her uncle Eddie (Elisha Cook, Jr.), an elevator operator there, greets her. Eddie overheard a couple who needed someone to watch their little girl, and Eddie suggested his niece. Nell is concerned that she has no experience. But Eddie states the hotel contains many kids, and they might make a business out of it.

Peter Jones (Jim Backus) talks to his daughter, Bunny (Donna Corcoran), about the zoo, trips to Coney Island, and the Automat. She promises to be a good girl while her parents are out for the evening. After Eddie and Nell enter, both parents give Nell instructions. Neil compliments Ruth Jones (Lurene Tuttle) on her dress. Peter and Ruth say they’ll just be downstairs, Peter receiving an award, so nothing should go wrong.

Jed gravitates to the bar, hearing the voice of Lyn. Jed takes a seat and listens. Meanwhile, with Bunny in bed, Nell reads her a bedtime story. The story is short, so she wants another, but Nell says she thinks her mother would want her asleep now. Nell begins to turn out the bedroom lights, soon exploring, eating a few pieces of chocolate, listening to the radio, and wearing Ruth’s expensive jewelry and night clothes.

After the set ends, Jed approaches Lyn. He wants to bring the relationship back to life. Lyn insists it is over. Jed doesn’t treat people properly; he is always cynical and cold toward them. She tells Jed he lacks an “understanding heart.” Jed walks out in disgust.

Returning to his hotel room, Jed goes through his little black book and, frustrated, throws it on the bedside table. Looking across to the room opposite his, he sees Nell dancing around. She sees Jed watching her, and she says hello. When he says hello back, she abruptly closes her blind. Grabbing a bottle of booze, he commences to start drinking. Then she re-opens her blinds. Using a hotel legend to locate her room, he invites her to join him, then volunteers to come to her, but she says someone is at the door and hangs up. She closes her blinds again.

Eddie decides to visit Nell. Eddie proclaims, “That’s no way, Nell!” Nell is wearing Ruth’s clothes, saying an impulse came over her. Eddie yells at her to wash that perfume off and get out of Ruth’s clothes. Eddie leaves, telling her not to get into more mischief. But Nell continues to don Ruth’s clothes. Nell reopens the blinds, and Jed says he’ll be there in two minutes. As Nell applies lipstick, we see the scar on her wrist. She tidies up the hotel rooms and lets Jed enter.

Nell fetches two glasses, and Jed serves. Nell makes up stories about buying her negligee from Paris and heading to South America in a few days. Nell figures out that Jed was a pilot during the war who came back, and she kisses him. She assumes this is Phillip, her boyfriend, who died overseas and came back dead. Bunny comes out of her room. Jed is his usual glib self to Bunny, and Nell explodes with anger, telling her to go back to bed. Bunny says she is here to steal her mother’s things, noticing Nell wearing her mother’s nightgown. Bunny, crying, returns to bed. Nell reveals to Jed her problems with her parents and sometimes her uncle, and her obsession with acquiring nice things. Sobbing sounds erupt from Bunny’s room, and Jed investigates, bringing the child outside, trying to comfort her. Nell suggests getting fresh air, and while the child leans outside the open window, Nell almost pushes the child to her death, but Jed intervenes. Tucking Bunny in, Nell threatens her to remain quiet. Returning to Jed, he makes a beeline out of the hotel room, citing an appointment.

Eddie returns when he’s off-duty, and Nell hides Jed in another room before answering the door. Looking at Nell, Eddie is disgusted to see that she is still wearing Ruth’s clothes. He says, “You smell like a cooch dancer!” Eddie says he’s tried to put her straight. Nell acts nervous and out of sorts, and Eddie says, “I thought everything was clearing up; I thought you were getting better ... now I’m wondering about everything.” Nell changes into her own clothes, taking off Ruth’s bracelet and earrings. Eddie wipes off her lipstick. Eddie rants, “I should have known better, you’re not cured!” which enrages Nell. Nell says, “You’re just like my father. You want me committed again!” Eddie corrects her; the doctors put her away. Eddie senses she has a man hidden, and when he checks out the bathroom, Nell clunks him over the head with a large metal ashtray.

Ruth Jones telephones about Bunny and hears background noise, which Nell tries to explain away. It’s actually Bunny sobbing alone in her bedroom. Jed attends to the now conscious Eddie, dazed in the bathroom. He asks Jed to leave so Nell and he can be alone. The elderly couple, the Ballews, having gotten a room, knock at the door, and Jed answers, but Nell slips outside to explain Bunny’s crying and screaming. Bunny has been bound and gagged in her bed. Jed noticeably slips out the other door, and Nell says he forced his way in. The neighbors call the house detective about the intruder, while Nell walks around dazed.

Jed rushes to the lounge area to catch Lyn and really talk. At the same time, Nell asks Mr. and Mrs. Ballew, the busybodies, to leave. Jed tells Lyn all about nutty Nell, the girl he met. He speaks with compassion, and Lyn has never heard him talk like that before. In her room, Bunny struggles to reach the phone to get help. Nell quietly enters her dark bedroom to find Bunny on the floor. Nell blames her for disturbing her time with Jed, destroying her perfect relationship. Nell wouldn’t allow her to wear the pretty things. In other words, Bunny came between her and happiness.

As he tells Lyn the story, Jed remembers Bunny lying on the other bed, motionless, and grows concerned. He feels an urge to return to the hotel room to check on Bunny, who may be in danger. Ruth enters their room to check on Bunny before gambling starts downstairs and finds the front room vacant. As Jed enters the bedroom, Ruth screams. Ruth and Nell struggle in the dark, and Jed throws Nell to the ground. Jed releases Bunny from her bindings, and she hugs her mother as Nell whimpers on the floor. Eddie, locked in the bathroom, knocks for help, and Jed lets him out. Nell wanders down the hotel corridors as the house detective gets off the elevator, but she evades him and enters the elevator herself.

As Nell exits the elevator, she sees that the front doors are directly across the lobby from her. She slowly staggers and stops at a shop selling razor blades. Someone finally spots her in the lobby and calls the house detective. The bellhops notify one another and gather in front of the closed dining room where Nell is standing. Lyn approaches Nell, calling out her name. Nell holds the razor blade up to her neck in desperation. Jed appears on the scene and demands the blade from Nell. Jed yells to break up the gawking mob assembled. Jed calmly talks to Nell and convinces her that he is not Phillip, her dead boyfriend. Two policemen arrive to escort Nell to a local hospital. Lyn asks Jed if he cares what happens to that girl? She smiles and says, “You do care!” They hold hands closely, and Lyn offers to buy him a drink. They both smile, walking off hand-in-hand, their relationship on once again.

Critique

Don’t Bother to Knock is a psychological film noir, so very much popular in the mid-1940s through the early 1950s. Marilyn Monroe, early in her film career, played the mentally damaged Nell Forbes, the woman who did not survive the death of her boyfriend, who was killed overseas during the war. She confuses Jed Towers with her boyfriend, Phillip, and falls instantly in love with him. The role demonstrates that Monroe was capable of creating a sensitive character rather than merely playing the dumb blonde. She was assigned too few roles of this ilk and was typecast as the iconic sexual bombshell of the 1950s and 1960s. Her range was more expansive than she was given credit for.

Richard Widmark was renowned for portraying lowlifes, hoodlums, and exploitative types. He generally did not portray airline pilots trying to salvage their disintegrating love life. Somehow, his patchy relationship with Anne Bancroft seems to jar with the main plot: her relationship with Bunny, her mom, and her uncle. The relationship between Marilyn Monroe and Richard Widmark seems forced and somewhat out of place. Of course, it is used to show how psychology damaged Nell's character is. It also demonstrates that Jed does have an “understanding heart” and truly cares about other human beings. But once again, that aspect of the script seems forced. True, the movie is based on a novel by Charlotte Armstrong, but the plot elements feel strained here. It seems the Widmark/Monroe scenes simply play up the actress’ sizzle in a movie instead of concentrating on her textured performance.

Interestingly, the director is Roy Ward Baker, who also helmed a number of Hammer Films and Amicus Productions including: Quatermass and the Pit, The Anniversary, Moon Zero Two, The Vampire Lovers, Scars of Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires; and Amicus’ Asylum, The Vault of Horror, Now the Screaming Starts! He also directed Milton Subotsky’s The Monster Club. His most famous film remains A Night to Remember, a film about the Titanic disaster.

Elisha Cook, Jr. is always a quirky character actor. For instance, he played the gunsel, Wilmer Cook, in the John Houston The Maltese Falcon, and here, for once, he plays a normal, concerned uncle. His part is larger than usual, and his rapport with Marilyn Monroe stands out in this film. He is highly concerned that his young niece is cured and ready to join society, but he slowly comes to realize she desperately needs more institutional time. He tries to help her succeed more like a parent than an uncle, but he’s enthusiastic, optimistic, and loving in the most sensitive way. This is a rare, good guy role for him, and he shines at it.

Donna Corcoran’s performance as Bunny has to be delivered just right for her to shine as a child in danger. She delivers exceptionally. Whether she speaks as a child to her father, or as a threatened child to a weird Marilyn Monroe, we believe her. Crying in the bedroom, or crawling with her bindings, she makes one believe she is a child in peril. When Munroe almost pushes her outside a hotel window, she strikes the perfect balance between sweet little girl and victim. If the child’s role is not totally believable, the movie stops dead and fails to work.

The cynical Jed Towers transforms too quickly into the caring pilot with a warm heart, based on his relationship with the severely damaged Nell Forbes and the innocent little girl she threatens. He cares and changes his personality too rapidly just to convince Lyn Lesley that he remains good marriage material, even though he tries hard to win over Nell Forbes before he realizes she is a whacko. Just having broken off with Lyn, he dives into his little black book a little too effortlessly.

The 1952 film, Don’t Bother to Knock, is a pretty impressive misfire, hosting a strong, dedicated cast with Marilyn Monroe front and center. She shines in ways she will never shine again, and this is the movie’s chief strength. The suspense of capturing and controlling Bunny is quite effective, but the relationship between her and Richard Widmark is flawed overall. But the scenario and gifted cast make up for some of the film’s weaknesses. Though it remains a film with flaws, it ultimately entertains giving Monroe space to create a complex character.

JED (RICHARD WIDMARK) AND NELL (MARILYN MONROE) IN A PUBLICY SHOT

BUNNY JONES (DONNA CORCORAN) SITS POWERLESS AGAINST NELL FORBES.

NELL IS IN A RAGE WITH HER UNCLE EDDIE (ELISHA COOK, JR.).