Recently watched Don't Bother to Knock. It's a 1952 thriller in which a shy and fragile woman is hired to babysit a little girl in her parents' hotel room while the father is getting some kind of newspaper award. Then she turns out to be nuts and dangerous. This is a good one for a few reasons:
1. In what has to be considered a pretty high-quality cast in general (Richard Widmark, Anne Bancroft, Elisha Cook Jr., etc) Marilyn Monroe is a standout as the babysitter. Monroe was a more internalized actress than she was generally given credit for at the time, and I suspect her background in the foster care system helped inform her performance here.
2. There's a pretty bold jazz soundtrack by Lionel Newman, one of Randy's uncles. Bancroft's character sings several songs as well, and either he or whoever she was lipsyncing to had a good set of pipes.
3. Aside from the girls' parents attending the newspaper banquet, the action never leaves the hotel. It uses that setting to the fullest, setting up a varied dynamic between the major and minor characters who work there. Nothing is wasted.
The movie also has a sharp sense of humor about itself. From a certain point of view it's a comedy.
1. In what has to be considered a pretty high-quality cast in general (Richard Widmark, Anne Bancroft, Elisha Cook Jr., etc) Marilyn Monroe is a standout as the babysitter. Monroe was a more internalized actress than she was generally given credit for at the time, and I suspect her background in the foster care system helped inform her performance here.
2. There's a pretty bold jazz soundtrack by Lionel Newman, one of Randy's uncles. Bancroft's character sings several songs as well, and either he or whoever she was lipsyncing to had a good set of pipes.
3. Aside from the girls' parents attending the newspaper banquet, the action never leaves the hotel. It uses that setting to the fullest, setting up a varied dynamic between the major and minor characters who work there. Nothing is wasted.
The movie also has a sharp sense of humor about itself. From a certain point of view it's a comedy.
2 comments:
Ah, this sounds like a very good one and from your description likely too I saw it long ago. Marilyn Monroe was a far better actress than she's often given credit for being. I'm sure you're right that her childhood experiences allowed her to have an excellent understanding of the role.
It's good to know you love old movies, certainly a lot of the more recent ones don't hold a candle to the complexities and character studies done decades ago. A friend of mine recently asked if we watched films on Filmstruck, a streaming service originated with Turner and Criterion. Unfortunately, it hasn't been made available in Canada, but since it specializes in rare and classic films I thought I'd mention it to you.
Yeah, I mean, there's a difference between being troubled as she was and having a full (violent) psychotic break, but method acting is still acting. I'd always knows she was good at comedy. Hell, even Rupert Pupkin said so, if he's a little robotic about it. This was a great dramatic performance as well.
I'd heard the name Filmstruck but I wasn't entirely sure what they did. It does sound like a good service/resource.
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