Man, all I wanted was something light before I went to bed. Turns out Roy Ward Baker's Don't Bother to Knock is a complex, superbly acted noir tragedy featuring none other than Marilyn Monroe as a suicidally insane ex-mental patient moonlighting as a babysitter in a lavish hotel. Freaking what? I've never seen Monroe do a role like this before. Complex ones, deep ones, dramatic ones...sure! But I've never seen her actually be crazy. And she's not half bad. Sometimes her trembling voice seems to channel none other than Jacqueline Kennedy, and at those times she starts to slip over into the realm of camp. Thankfully there are a number of other great actors and actresses pinch-hitting for her: Richard Widmark, Anne Bancroft, and Elisha Cook Jr., just to name a few. It's always a treat to find such ensemble casts in films that fell to the wayside of film history. I think I need to revisit this one when I'm not half asleep. It was quite good.
7/10
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