Don't Bother to Knock

My mother loved Marilyn Monroe. I never understood why, as she tended to hate women who hit that level of sex symbol renown, but she loves Marilyn just the same. As such, I was exposed to a few of her movies when I was young; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Some Like It Hot, and The Seven Year Itch. I remember very little about them, but I remember enough to know that they weren't exactly acting master classes by Ms. Monroe. When I saw this pop up on someone else's Letterboxd, I was intrigued; Marilyn Monroe, not only doing a dramatic role, but someone with mental illness. I was curious. I didn't think she could pull it off. I'm happy to report I was wrong. Not only did she pull it off, but she actually manages to be rather unsettling at some points. Don't Bother To Knock is about a guy getting mixed up with a babysitter in a hotel. Monroe is Nell the babysitter, and she is the diametric opposite of everything you think of the actress; mousy, soft-spoken, and barely holding it together. Her hair is a chestnut brown, and any hint of the curvy sexpot she'd become is buried under a simple housedress. Even when she tries to be beautiful by trying on her client's negligee and robe, it feels like a costume. There's no attitude behind it. She wears it hoping the clothes will make her beautiful, not to enhance her natural beauty. That requires performance, and Monroe does it. As the movie goes on and Monroe's character starts to unravel, her performance takes on new levels. There's a close-up when the little girl she's watching is leaning out a window; Monroe says something about the girl never cry again, and the look in her eyes sent a chill down my spine; I was sure this movie from 1952 was gonna have the balls to kill a kid by shoving her out an eighth story window, because Monroe's eyes were downright insane. This is definitely Monroe's movie, though. Richard Widmark as Jed is the co-lead who gets wrapped up in Nell's mental deterioration. He starts off as a snarky, cynical douche whose heart is opened up out of consideration for Nell's declining state. Problem is, he mostly reacts to Monroe's acting. Anne Bancroft debuts in this movie as the off again-on again love interest of Jed. She isn't given a whole lot to do, but what she does have displays the talents she would come to be revered for. The direction is pretty simple -- everything takes place in a hotel, so don't expect fancy camera angles and zooms and pans. One might even call the camerawork pedestrian. But the acting carries the movie along with a steady pace, doling out Nell's breakdown and how the situation escalates into chaos over a short not-even-80 minute run time. In an era where every movie wants to bulk up to 120 minutes, I respect a movie that gets in, tells its story tautly and effectively, and gets out. This won't blow your socks off with originality, and it does feel a bit mechanical in the way its plot unfolds, but those are hardly unforgivable sins. I enjoyed seeing how far this movie would take its portrait of a troubled young woman coming apart, and was stunned Marilyn Monroe was able to pull it off so well.