When airline pilot Jed Towers (Richard Widmark) first spots Nell Forbes (Marilyn Monroe) in Don’t Bother to Knock, she’s dancing seductively alone in a hotel room. Looking out his window across the hotel courtyard, Jed sees only the sexy allure of an attractive young woman, someone whose company might ease his frustration after a fight with his lounge-singer girlfriend Lyn Lesley (Anne Bancroft). He doesn’t anticipate the depths of trauma and anguish below the surface of this enticing vision.
That’s an apt metaphor for how Monroe was treated by the public during her lifetime, and Don’t Bother to Knock is one of a handful of movies in which she attempted to counteract the perception of herself as a bubbly sexpot (something that remains pervasive in pop culture, right up to the discussion around the upcoming Monroe biopic Blonde). Released 70 years ago this week, it’s a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of mental illness for the time. In one of her best and most underrated performances, Monroe brings genuine sorrow to a woman who’s been dismissed by the people in her life, rushed to be “cured” so they don’t have to concern themselves with her anymore. Widmark may get top billing, but Monroe is the heart of this melancholy movie.
From the opening scene, director Roy Ward Baker establishes the disconnect between private despair and outward cheer, as Lyn pours her heart out to the bartender at a New York City hotel. She tells him about the note she’s written to break things off with her fickle boyfriend, a pilot who flies in periodically from Chicago for trysts at the hotel. She wants more than he can offer, so she’s decided to end things, although she’s clearly not happy about it. She’s barely finished with her tale of woe when suddenly a spotlight shines on her. She swivels around in her barstool, picks up a microphone, and starts singing, immediately back in her stage persona as a glamorous entertainer.
The story isn’t really about Lyn, who’s much more emotionally stable than Nell, although that’s not immediately apparent. Nell makes a meek entrance into the hotel, looking for her uncle Eddie (Elisha Cook Jr.), an elevator operator. He’s arranged a babysitting gig for her with a couple who are spending the evening in a downstairs ballroom at an awards ceremony. If there’s something off about Nell, these busy parents don’t notice it as they leave their daughter Bunny (Donna Corcoran) with Nell for a few hours. Eddie vouches for her, and that’s good enough for them.
Once Eddie and the parents leave, though, and Bunny is put to bed, Nell almost immediately comes unmoored. She borrows jewelry, perfume, and a negligee from the mother, putting on an image of beauty and sophistication. As she looks in the mirror to apply lipstick, the camera focuses on the jagged scars on her wrists, an ugly contrast to the façade she’s attempting to construct. Then Jed gets a look at her, calls her on the phone, and invites himself into a situation he’s ill-equipped to handle.
Jed eventually comes out as the hero of the movie, but he’s still full of male entitlement, only slightly more understanding of Nell’s struggles than the religious parents who shipped her across the country to make her someone else’s responsibility. He doesn’t complain when Nell goes into a sort of fugue state and kisses him, confusing him with her dead boyfriend, who was also a pilot and perished in a plane crash over the Pacific Ocean. He’s eager to ply her with liquor and let her provide the easy comfort that he no longer gets from Lyn.
As Nell becomes more disoriented and possibly dangerous, especially in her treatment of Bunny, Jed’s initial instinct is to escape now that the fun has stopped. “You did this to yourself?” he sneers contemptuously when he first spots Nell’s scars. Widmark lets himself look pathetic and desperate, playing against Monroe’s intense sadness. The haunted look in Monroe’s eyes as Nell alternately pleads with and threatens Bunny not to ruin her night with Jed conveys just how lost and broken this woman is, latching on to the only person who’s shown her a minimal amount of affection.
There’s a happy ending of sorts, although it’s happier for Jed and Lyn than it is for Nell. “She’s a maniac. She may be a killer,” the house detective tells the staff after he’s alerted to Nell’s potential to harm a child. A nosy old woman in a nearby room is positively gleeful to discover that something terrible may be going on with Nell. These people are quick to classify her as a problem rather than a person, and it takes Jed nearly the entire running time to finally recognize her humanity. By that point, it’s almost too late for Nell, just as it was too late for Monroe. She remained stuck as a sex symbol, but in Don’t Bother to Knock, she shows the full range of her damaged, fragile humanity. 
“Don’t Bother to Knock” is available for rental or purchase via the usual platforms.
