Portrayals of Mental Illness in Film: Marilyn Monroe in "Don't Bother to Knock" (1952)

The Joneses are able to go to a function at the McKinley Hotel without worrying about their daughter Bunny. An elevator operator, Eddie (Elisha Cook Jr) recommended his niece (Marilyn Monroe) to watch her for the night, but there is something off about this babysitter and the neighbor (Richard Widmark) across the courtyard notices.

The pretty but clearly frightened Nell is in no state to babysit so soon after her three year stay in a psychiatric ward, trying on Ruth Jones's negligee and perfume, wooing Jed Towers over into the hotel suite. Confiding to the pilot, she admits that her boyfriend was killed flying over Hawaii and Towers notices there are razor scars on her wrists. During this seduction, the daughter comes out and Nell resorts to binding and gagging the her without Towers's knowledge. Eventually she begins to believe that Jed is, in fact, Phillip her dead boyfriend and attempts suicide once more.

Following Monroe's first dramatic stint as a fish cannery worker in Fitz Lang's "Clash By Night" (1952), "Don't Bother to Knock" was her first starring role, but the studio still had her on a tight leash. When asked how Monroe got along with her costar Richard Widmark, she replied "They never let me go near him!" (Morgan, Marilyn Monroe: Priate and Confidential, 2012) However, it was all Monroe's film, receiving negative reviews from the New York Times and Variety but stunned some more open minded moviegoers. "I expected to see the chum I'd come to know, but recognized the fragile psychotic portrayed there, that Marilyn was an actress," praised fan Nanciele Finnegan. (Morgan, Marilyn Monroe: Priate and Confidential, 2012)

The New York Times's Bosley Crowther describes her performance as "a childishly blank expression and a provokingly feeble, hollow voice." With drama coach Natasha Lytess glued to her hip behind the scenes, Monroe was able to "evoke her real-life fears of following in her mother's descent into mental illness." (Vogel. Marilyn Monroe: Her Films, Her Life. 2014) Gladys Baker was was institutionalized as a paranoid schizophrenic off and on throughout her life, which left Monroe in the foster system. Baker's parents, Otis and Della Monroe, both suffered from manic depression with schizophrenia in the family tree as well.