Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Don't Bother to Knock Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson December 14, 2019

It's hard to believe that the Fox melodrama Don't Bother to Knock was already the thirteenth film Marilyn Monroe officially appeared in yet it was also her first starring role. Over the course of 76 minutes, the viewer appreciates how she gradually and subtly develops a delicate character who's still recovering from a mental illness. When her character first enters the midtown New York hotel where the whole film is set, she's a shy and submissive 30-year-old escorted to Room 807 by her uncle Eddie Forbes (Elisha Cook Jr.), a bellhop and elevator operator. Eddie has helped his niece, Nell Forbes (Marilyn Monroe), get a job babysitting Bunny Jones (Donna Corcoran), the precocious 7-year-old daughter of newspaper editor Peter Jones (Jim Backus) and his wife Ruth (Lurene Tuttle). The Joneses are headed downstairs for a banquet and have assigned the care of their daughter to a total stranger.

The film cuts in between other goings-on in the hotel, including the blues performances of Tuesday Night Club songstress Lyn Lesley (21-year-old Anne Bancroft in her debut on the silver screen). Jed Towers (Richard Widmark) is a restless off-duty flier who recently broke up with Lyn and can't keep his mind off her. He hears Lyn's familiar voice on the radio in a floor above and can't help but try to win her back in the hotel bar and lounge in between musical numbers. Lyn rebuffs his advances, telling him that he has a heart that doesn't understand her true feelings and should travel to Chicago and find a new girl. When a forlorn Jed returns to his room, he sees a sexily dressed Nell across the courtyard directly opposite his room. Nell has put on Ruth's black negligee, jewelry, and lipstick. She flirtatiously teases Jed by closing and opening the Venetian blinds, thus re-encouraging his gaze. Jed phones the Joneses' room and Nell invites him to come over there. He needn't bother to knock. Whereas Jed hopes to find a solid young woman that will make him forget Lyn, he discovers someone far less stable. Nell has the delusion that Jed is really her betrothed aviator who supposedly perished in the Pacific during the war but didn't actually die and has miraculously returned? Nell grows frustrated by Bunny's whining and believes she's disrupting a reunion with her fiancé. Jed and the audience learn that Nell was in a psychiatric institute for three years following violent tussles with her parents and uncle. Nell seems to have psychopathic and suicidal tendencies. Will she place Jed, Bunny, and others in grave danger?

Meet the new babysitter.

Don't Bother to Knock played across the United States throughout the summer and fall of 1952. I don't have concrete box-office data but audiences seemed to enjoy it, according to my research. Press reports in advance of its wide release revved it up as one of the "best and most forthright of all movie melodramas." It was an opportunity for Monroe to shed the label as the most sensational blonde bombshell since June Russell and mature into a serious dramatic leading lady. Although she reportedly had trouble remembering her lines, she grew into this challenging part and made her character's oddball symptoms believable and convincing. The always solid Richard Widmark gives a sympathetic performance as the one who tries to help her. The beautiful Anne Bancroft displays her natural talent and singing ability. English import Roy Baker directs his first American film. An unsigned review in the Sioux City (IA) Journal touted Baker as a "British master of suspense in the Hitchcock tradi­tion." I wouldn't go nearly that far based on this film. Baker spends a lot of time on exposition and establishing characters in the first three reels to the extent that the pace becomes very sluggish. He doesn't seem to have full confidence in stretching out Daniel Taradash's script, which is witty but takes awhile to set up palpable tensions between the principals. But when Jed comes to visit Nell, Don't Bother to Knock becomes a much more interesting psychological thriller.

Don't Bother to Knock Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Twilight Time licensed Don't Bother to Knock from Fox and released an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 in the spring of last year. According to the technical credits in the enclosed booklet, West Entertainment (a Blu-ray authoring service in Studio City, CA) handled the mastering. The film appears in Academy Ratio and has been sourced from what appears like a recent restoration. This is a marvelous transfer with crisp and deep black levels. The grayscale is not as dark as it was on Fox's 2002 DVD. Grain may not be as dense or thick enough for purists but I also studied this transfer on a relatively small 4K monitor and could easily pick out the grain, which is well-balanced and stable throughout. The film is transferred much better to Blu-ray than it is on Shout Select's recently released BD-50 in The Anne Bancroft Collection, which I'm covering in a shorter review. The biggest distraction on the Shout is moiré effects on Richard Widmark's suit. These weren't present on Fox's initial DVD and I've built a comparison between the three transfers. The only flaw I detect on the TT image is some shimmering along the wall panel in Ted's room (see Screenshot #18). TT has encoded the main feature at a mean video bitrate of 29998 kbps.

Screenshot #s 1-18, 21, 24, & 27 = Twilight Time 2018 BD-50
Screenshot #s 20, 23, & 26 = Fox 2002 DVD-9
Screenshot #s 22, 25, & 28 = Shout Select 2019 BD-50

Twilight Time provides a generous twenty-four chapters for this 76-minute feature.

Don't Bother to Knock Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Twilight Time has supplied the movie's original monaural which is rendered here as a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono (2020 kbps, 24-bit). There is no significant hiss nor did I hear any pops, crackles, or tape dropouts on this lossless track. Don't Bother to Knock is largely dialogue driven and I preferred to have the volume up moderately high. Monroe famously had a soft voice so I made sure the sound was turned up higher for her lines. Harold V. Cohen, who covered movies for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, twice noted Monroe's "softly spoken words" in his theatrical review of this film.

Optional Engish SDH can be activated under the menu's Setup or via remote.

Don't Bother to Knock Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Marilyn Monroe: The Mortal Goddess (44:06, 480i) - An A&E Biography series program on the famous starlet that originally aired on the cable network on Sept. 29, 1996. The interviews and film footage are in English. This uses the MPEG-2 encode.

• Richard Widmark: Strength of Characters (44:23, 480i) - another A&E Biography series program, this one focusing on Widwark's career. It includes interviews with the actor and other Hollywood stars. This also employs MPEG-2.

• Original Theatrical Trailer (2:41, 480i) - a vintage trailer of Don't Bother to Knock.

• Isolated Music Track - a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix (1693 kbps, 24-bit). There is opening and closing music but no other non-diegetic music. Bancroft sings a few blues songs on camera and that's it.

• Booklet - some stills and posters from the film as well as an essay by Julie Kirgo.

Don't Bother to Knock Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Don't Bother to Knock is a slow melodramatic thriller that really catches steam in the second half. It features one of Marilyn Monroe's finest dramatic performances, stalwart work from co-star Richard Widmark, and a fine first-movie turn by Anne Bancroft. Twilight Time delivers a clean and smooth transfer that I much prefer over Shout Select's. It also has two A&E TV docs on the careers of the two leading players, making it the clear winner of the two. Copies still remain so get them while they last. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.