Don't Bother to Knock is a 1952 American Film Noir thriller directed by British director Roy Ward Baker. Daniel Taradash adapted the screenplay from the novel Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong.
The film takes place in a busy New York City hotel. In the hotel's bar/club, singer Lyn Lesley (Anne Bancroft) tries to keep the show going. She's just written a letter to her airline pilot lover Jed Towers (Richard Widmark) breaking things off, realizing that he's not the man she wants to be with. The breakup upsets him, although it mostly seems to be a matter of hurt pride, as he talks of "love" dismissively.
Elsewhere in the same hotel, enterprising doorman Eddie Forbes (Elisha Cook Jr.) is showing around his niece Nell (Marilyn Monroe), a shy girl from Oregon. He introduces her to Peter and Ruth Jones (Jim Backus and Lurene Tuttle), who need a babysitter for the night for their daughter Bunny (Donna Corcoran) as they attend a press convention. Eddie hopes that he and Nell can make a regular business of her services, but she shows troubling signs of mental instability.
Things really start percolating when Jed, rejected by Lyn, sees Nell in the window across the courtyard, swanning about in Mrs. Jones's kimono. Could this be an easy and fun way to forget his troubles for the night?
No. No, it could not.
Provides examples of:
- Babysitter from Hell: Nell may be the supreme example. She seems all right at first, but as the night wears on she menaces Bunny, neglects her when she cries, and at one point at least toys with the idea of pushing her out the window. By the end she’s tied the kid up.
- The Bartender: Joe, the bartender at the club, is a sympathetic ear for Lyn’s troubles. He also gives Jed some friendly advice.
- Blatant Lies: When Bunny proffers a box of chocolates to her, Nell says that she never eats candy. She digs into the chocolates as soon as she puts Bunny to bed.
- Commitment Issues: While he’s not happy about the breakup, Jed doesn’t want any kind of commitment with Lyn either. Afterwards he seems to be looking forward to some no-strings and fairly anonymous sex with Nell, but of course that’s not how it goes.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: After escaping from the Jones’s suite Jed tells Lyn about his night, saying that when he left Bunny was safe in bed. It then dawns on him that Bunny was in the wrong bed and wasn’t moving (because she was bound and gagged.)
- The Film of the Book: Adapted from the 1950 novel Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong.
- Nice to the Waiter: Lyn is disillusioned with Jed in part because of the way he treats people, his rudeness to a hotel photographer being one example. He’s also short with Eddie in an elevator scene where Lyn isn’t with him. He undergoes Character Development on this and a few other fronts throughout the film.
- Nosy Neighbor: Mr. and Mrs. Ballew, a resident couple in the hotel, qualify, especially her. Given the circumstances they’re something of a heroic example.
- Replacement Goldfish: Nell has never recovered from her boyfriend’s death years earlier, when his plane went down overseas. When she finds out that Jed is an aviator as well the dead man and the living one start blurring in her mind.
- Self-Harm: When she’s applying Mrs. Jones’s lipstick, the camera zooms in on thick scars on Nell’s wrists, souvenirs from a previous suicide attempt. Before the night is over she’ll try to take a razor to her throat.
- Suspect Is Hatless: When they think he broke into the suite, the Ballews call the hotel detective on Jed, but the only information they can give is that he wore a red tie and is “handsome.” The detective snorts.
