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It can be argued that Marilyn Monroe was never really appreciated in her time, noted almost exclusively for her stunning looks. However, she was a talented actress with a talent for comedy — as seen in Some Like it Hot, and for drama — as in The Misfits. However, before the release of Niagara, the film that took her career to a new level, Monroe played a disturbed babysitter in the thriller Don't Bother to Knock, demonstrating her range. The film and Monroe's performance were largely unappreciated in reviews at the time of release. However, the movie has since been reevaluated as a masterpiece, with a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, thanks to Monroe herself.

January 2025 could mark a bleak month for very specific reasons, but in that month one can watch a nicely curated collection of David Bowie’s best performances. Nearly a decade since he passed, the iconic actor (who had some other trades) is celebrated with The Man Who Fell to Earth, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, The Linguini Incident, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, and Basquiat. (Note: watch The Missing Pieces under Fire Walk with Me‘s Criterion edition for about three times as much Phillip Jeffries.) It’s a retrospective-heavy month: Nicole Kidman, Cameron Crowe, Ethan Hawke, Paulin Soumanou Vieyra, Paolo Sorrentino, and Sean Baker are given spotlights; the first and last bring with them To Die For and Take Out‘s Criterion Editions, joining Still Walking, Hunger, and A Face in the Crowd.

“Surveillance Cinema” brings Thx 1138, Body Double, Minority Report, and others, while “Love in Disguise” offers films by Lubitsch,...

In "Don't Bother to Knock," Marilyn Monroe showcases her dramatic acting abilities, bringing complexity and depth to her role as a mentally unstable babysitter. Monroe's portrayal of Nell displays a range of emotions, from intimidating to desperate, showcasing her versatile acting skills beyond comedic roles. Criticized for her suitability in dramatic roles, Monroe, without formal training at the time, delivers a standout performance in the movie, proving her talent.

Dont Bother To Knock was Marilyn Monroes first leading dramatic role and revealed much of her acting promise before she trained intensively with Lee Strasberg, widely regarded as the founder of so-called "method acting". Monroe is best known for her captivating presence and comedic timing, demonstrated by legendary performances in projects like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot. However, she is less appreciated for her dramatic acting abilities, having been typecast in more rom-coms and musicals.

In Don't Bother To Knock,...

Superstar Marilyn Monroe passed away in 1962, but her legacy lives on in the form of several classic movies that still hold up today. The actor and model appeared in plenty of great films across her lifetime, including several that have only grown in public estimation since their release. Among the best: crowd pleasers like "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," "The Seven Year Itch," and "How To Marry A Millionaire," plus stone-cold classics "Some Like It Hot" and "All About Eve."

Surprisingly, though, Monroe's most popular and obviously beloved movies aren't actually her most acclaimed –- at least according to one major metric. Only one of the films she appeared in during her too-short lifetime has a perfect critical score on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, and it's not any of the titles listed above. Instead, that coveted 100% score goes to "Don't Bother To Knock," a comparatively underseen thriller Monroe starred in...

Just in time for Succession‘s end, let’s look at method acting. The Criterion Channel are highlighting the controversial practice in a 27-film series centered on Brando, Newman, Nicholson, and many other’s embodiment of “an intensely personal, internalized, and naturalistic approach to performance.” That series makes mention of Marilyn Monroe, who gets her own, 11-title highlight––the iconic commingling with deeper cuts.

Pride Month offers “Masc,” a consideration of “trans men, butch lesbians, and gender-nonconforming heroes” onscreen; the Michael Koresky-curated Queersighted returning with a study of the gay best friend; and the 20-film “LGBTQ+ Favorites.” Louis Garrel’s delightful The Innocent (about which I talked to him here), the director’s cut of Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, and Stanley Kwan’s hugely underseen Lan Yu make streaming premieres, while Araki’s Totally F***ed Up and Mysterious Skin also get a run. Criterion Editions include Five Easy Pieces,...

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The much-publicized backlash that has surrounded Andrew Dominik’s Nc-17 biopic Blonde has had the surprising, simultaneous effect of elevating interest in another Marilyn Monroe project that might otherwise have slipped into the past. In 2001, pioneering female filmmaker Joyce Chopra shot a two-part TV miniseries for CBS, adapting the very same Joyce Carol Oates novel Dominik would later spend over a decade bringing to screen for Netflix.

Dominik’s harrowing, nearly three-hour telling of the Marilyn story has been widely criticized for its almost exclusive focus on the many traumas of the Hollywood icon’s life, and for devoting little interest to the episodes where she exercised undeniable agency and self-determination. As The Hollywood Reporter’s lead critic David Rooney put it in his review, “This is a treatise on celebrity and the sex symbol that blurs not only reality with fantasy but also empathy with exploitation.

Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde” has emerged as one of the most talked about movies of the fall season, earning praise for its visuals and Ana de Armas’ performance as Marilyn Monroe while being criticized by many for its treatment of sensitive subjects like abortion and addiction.

But while the film (by its own admission) plays fast and loose with the facts about Monroe’s life, it’s extremely accurate when it comes to the movies. Dominik and his team went to great lengths to recreate shots from many of the actress’ most iconic films in meticulous detail. From her early roles like “Don’t Bother to Knock” to undisputed classics like “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “Some Like it Hot,” fans of Old Hollywood will find that the movie contains a treasure trove of classic film references.

Keep reading for a roundup of all of the Marilyn Monroe movies referenced in “Blonde,...

Ana de Armas plays Norma Jeane/Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s Blonde. Photo: Netflix Based on Joyce Carol Oates’ Pulitzer Prize finalist novel of the same name, Blonde uses a work of biographical fiction to presumably seek deeper truths about the life of Marilyn Monroe. Unfortunately, director Andrew Dominik...

Forget Seberg, forget Mank, forget Judy — Andrew Dominik’s Venice Film Festival competition entry Blonde takes a blowtorch to the entire concept of the Hollywood biopic and arrives at something almost without precedent.

Gus Van Sant, at the height of his Béla Tarr period, achieved something remarkable and kind of similar with 2005’s Last Days, an immersive but fictional rumination on the events preceding rock star Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994. But then, Blonde’s closest antecedents are all in fiction — anyone expecting an idiot’s guide to Marilyn Monroe will be surprised or even appalled to see the late star’s life presented as a horror movie in the surreal, nightmarish style of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, another film about a blonde actress struggling with the boundaries between fantasy and fiction and whose star, Naomi Watts, was attached to this movie way back in the day.

‘Blonde’ Venice...

Images of Marilyn Monroe are the most replicated of any actress to emerge since the dawn of cinema. Her peroxide curls, cupid’s bow pout, and va-va-voom figure are recognizable to the point that her marketing potential has long since overwhelmed the matter of who she was as a person. To take a swing at saying — or showing — something resonant about the woman born Norma Jeane Mortenson, a storyteller would have to go to lengths far greater than Andrew Dominik is able to span in his

Much like Asaf Kapadia did with his documentary, “Amy,” Dominik critiques the world for reducing his subject down to her topline assets — and then treats her in exactly the same way. His Marilyn is a sexy, breathy blonde with daddy issues. And that’s all, folks.

Well, not quite all, as “Blonde” sets out to show a lifetime of victimization and exploitation. The film...

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You might feel like you need a shower after Blonde, but hey, at least it’s not bland. In his first narrative feature in 10 years, Andrew Dominik brings intoxicating visual style and a voyeuristic leer to Joyce Carol Oates’ 700-plus page biographical fiction novel of the same name. A mythic fable about Marilyn Monroe as an unwanted child desired by millions, passed around by men as she desperately searched for someone to call “Daddy” on her path to self-destruction, this is a treatise on celebrity and the sex symbol that blurs not only reality with fantasy but also empathy with exploitation. Either despite or because of all that, it’s a must-see.

There’s a lot of great stuff here, particularly a raw performance from Ana de Armas that strips the most examined woman in pop-culture history bare, literally and metaphorically. But as...

Whether a viewer in 1896 or 2020, cinema has always been a dynamic and variable experience. Cinema as an event—as a manifestation of a meeting point between the art of moving images and an audience, big or small—has never fit any one definition, and this last year, so severely disrupted by a global pandemic, has deeply underscored the versatility and resilience of our great love.Our viewing this year, like that of so many, has been strange: compromised, confrontational, escapist, euphoric, painful, revelatory—encompassing all of the reactions one can have to film. How we encountered our favorite movies and most meaningful cinematic experiences of the year was hardly new: A by-now-normal mix of festivals, theatres, various subscription and transactional streaming services, as well as private screener links and gems buried on over-stuffed hard drives. But for most of the year, the communal experience shrunk to living rooms and glowing screens.

Remember those DVD collections organized by star, that combined favorite actors’ big movies with good titles you might not have seen? Shout Select has gone that route in honor of the great Anne Bancroft, collecting eight titles in one box. They span the years 1952 to 1989 … and are sourced from multiple studios and disc boutiques. Eight, count ’em 8 — no dog-eared transfers, and one is even a fully-appointed Criterion disc. We’re told that Mel Brooks applied some of the clout that made this happen.

The Anne Bancroft Collection

Blu-ray

Shout Select

1952 – 1987 / B&w + Color / Street Date December 10, 2019 / 79.97

Starring: Anne Bancroft, Marilyn Monroe, Richard Widmark; Patty Duke; Peter Finch; Dustin Hoffman, Katherine Ross; Dom De Luise; Mel Brooks; Jane Fonda, Meg Tilly; Anthony Hopkins.

Directed by Roy Baker; Arthur Penn; Jack Clayton; Mike Nichols; Anne Bancroft; Alan Johnson; Norman Jewison; David Hugh Jones.

This Shout Select compilation disc was reportedly curated by Anne Bancroft’s husband,...

Shout! Factory has released a highly impressive Blu-ray boxed set, "The Anne Bancroft Collection" containing key films from the Oscar-winner's career. Here is the official press release:

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Los Angeles, CA – Celebrate the extraordinary film career of actress/writer/director Anne Bancroft in the first-ever collection of her most iconic performances, The Anne Bancroft Collection, on Blu-ray™ December 10th from Shout! Factory. From Annie Sullivan to Mrs. Robinson, and from Helene Hanff to Anna Bronski, this Oscar®-winning and profoundly versatile actress delivered some of the most poignant and sharply comic characters in modern film.

The collection, curated by Bancroft’s husband, the inimitable writer/director/producer Mel Brooks, includes the films Don’t Bother To Knock (1952), The Miracle Worker (1962), The Pumpkin Eater (1964), The Graduate (1967), Fatso (1980), To Be Or Not To Be (1983), and for the first time on Blu-ray™, Agnes Of God (1985), and...

What are your three top noirs you'd love to see discussed this month? I mean besides the obvious choices like Gilda (a personal fav) and films we've discussed in the past few years already like Double Indemnity, Blood Simple, The Bigamist, and Woman in the Window.

Easy Access Fyi:

• Netflix has a paltry selection of Noir but they are offering Dressed to Kill, Don't Bother to Knock, Laura, and House on Telegraph Hill

• Amazon Prime is streaming The Killer is Loose, The Man in the Attic, The Hitchhiker, Shoot to Kill, Scarlett Street, Dark Passage, Strange Woman, Fear in the Night, The Stranger, Port of New York, Strange Illusion, Whistle Stop and Woman on the Run

• The new FilmStruck service has several foreign titles mostly from Japan and France...

In a six-page letter to the psychiatrist who would find her dead a year later, a forlorn Marilyn Monroe wrote about her harrowing experience inside a New York psychiatric clinic, a stay which she said "had a very bad effect." The March 1, 1961, letter to Dr. Ralph Greenson detailed her excruciating experience within Payne-Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, a New York City sanitarium her other psychiatrist, Dr. Marianne Kris, committed her to the previous month. A carbon copy of the letter (not the original) is one of many of Monroe's personal items to be auctioned off this November by Julien's Auctions, which received...

In a six-page letter to the psychiatrist who would find her dead a year later, a forlorn Marilyn Monroe wrote about her harrowing experience inside a New York psychiatric clinic, a stay which she said "had a very bad effect." The March 1, 1961, letter to Dr. Ralph Greenson detailed her excruciating experience within Payne-Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, a New York City sanitarium her other psychiatrist, Dr. Marianne Kris, committed her to the previous month. A carbon copy of the letter (not the original) is one of many of Monroe's personal items to be auctioned off this November by Julien's Auctions, which received...

don't bother to knock

Happy Centennial to Richard Widmark today, the noir star who won instant fame (and an Oscar nod) for his film debut as dangerous "Tommy Udo" in Kiss of Death (1947). He almost made it to his centennial too but passed away in 2008. Other highlights from his filmography include: Night and the City (1950), Don't Bother to Knock (1952), Pick Up on South Street (1952), and that late career trio of all-star-cast Oscar darlings: Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), How the West Was Won (1962), and Murder on the Orient Express (1974).

Any favorite Widmark performances? I have never seen (gulp) Kiss of Death. I suppose I should get on that given the Oscar nomination.

Marilyn Monroe aka Norma Jeane Dougherty in 1946 Marilyn Monroe pictures taken during her first photo shoot — when she was still known as Norma Jeane Dougherty — will be auctioned following a Florida bankruptcy judge's ruling a few days ago. Proceeds from the selling of Monroe's images and their copyrights will help to settle the debts of photographer Joseph Jasgur. Julien's Auctions will handle the proceedings in their "Icons & Idols" auction, to be held December 2-4 in Beverly Hills. According to Julien's Auctions chief Darren Julien, the Marilyn Monroe photos have been locked up for more than two decades as a result of court battles. Julien added that Jasgur was hired by the Blue Book modeling agency to shoot Norma Jeane, then 19 years old, about a year or two (depending on the source) before her film debut. It's unclear how much the images and copyrights will fetch. (Note: In a signed release for the photos,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Roy Ward Baker, the esteemed British film director, has died at age 93. Baker was one of the few remaining representatives of the golden age of British filmmaking. He worked in his early years with such giants as Alfred Hitchcock and Carol Reed before embarking on a directing career of his own. He was one of the pioneers in the early use of 3-D in the 1950s and directed Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock, a film that greatly boosted her status as a leading lady. Baker was best known for his direction of the 1958 film A Night to Remember starring Kenneth More, Honor Blackman and David McCallum. The low-budget film was shot primarily at Pinewood Studios and depicted the sinking of the Titanic. Many film historians still believe it's the most dramatic and moving depiction of the tragedy ever brought to the screen. He also directed...

Updated through 10/9.

"Roy Ward Baker, an undersung British filmmaker who directed A Night to Remember, a vivid black-and-white rendering of the sinking of the Titanic revered by history and movie buffs alike, died on Tuesday in London. He was 93." Bruce Weber in the New York Times: "Technically deft and stylistically without affect, Mr Baker was trained in the classic, collaborative style of studio filmmaking, working for studios in England and the United States. His career included serving as an assistant director to Alfred Hitchcock on The Lady Vanishes in 1938; directing Marilyn Monroe in an early starring role, as an emotionally unstable baby sitter in a noir drama, Don't Bother to Knock (1952), with Richard Widmark and Anne Bancroft; and later making kitschy horror flicks and directing episodes of television shows like The Avengers and The Saint."...

A Night To Remember director Roy Ward Baker has died. He was 93.

The British filmmaker passed away in his sleep at a London hospital on Tuesday.

Baker got his start making tea at Gainsborough Studios in the British capital before he was hired as an assistant director on Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes.

He moved to Hollywood after World War II and directed Marilyn Monroe in the thriller Don't Bother to Knock as well as Bette Davis in The Anniversary, before notching up TV credits helming episodes of The Avengers, The Persuaders and Jason King.

Baker's best-known work was the 1958 movie A Night To Remember, which recreated the sinking of the Titanic.

Film director whose quirky career covered sci-fi, westerns, drama and Hammer horror

Roy Ward Baker, who has died aged 93, progressed from teaboy to director of sturdy British dramas to weird Hammer horrors, via Hollywood. It was a rather quirky career for a very straightforward man. Baker – who directed Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock and made the camp Mexican western The Singer Not the Song, the lesbian The Vampire Lovers and the transsexual Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde – insisted on calling himself "a simple-minded English lad". Perhaps the film closest to his personality was A Night to Remember (1958), which many would argue is the best of the cinematic versions of the story of the sinking of the Titanic.

Roy Horace Baker (he frequently replaced his middle name with Ward, his mother's maiden name) was born in London into a middle-class family. As a boy, he was sent to study...

Roy Ward Baker died peacefully in his sleep in a London hospital on Tuesday, says son Nicholas

The director who made A Night to Remember, the 1958 film recounting the final night aboard the Titanic, has died, his son confirmed today.

Roy Ward Baker died peacefully in his sleep at a London hospital on Tuesday. He was 93.

His son Nicholas said that preparations were being made for a funeral in London, adding that his father's work "speaks for itself".

Ward Baker, who was born in London in 1916, started out as an assistant director on Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes in London in 1938. After serving in the army during the second world war, he went to Hollywood, where he directed Marilyn Monroe in the 1962 movie Don't Bother to Knock.

He later returned to England where he directed a number of television dramas including The Avengers, The Persuaders and Minder.

During the latter half of his career,...

Marilyn Monroe, Don't Bother to Knock Roy Ward Baker, best known for directing Marilyn Monroe in her first dramatic lead, Don’t Bother to Knock (1952), for the 1958 Titanic drama A Night to Remember, and for handling an eyepatched Bette Davis in The Anniversary (1968), died on Oct. 5. Ward Baker (born on Dec. 16, 1914, in London) was 93. Among the filmmaker's other efforts — many of which for Hammer — are the sci-fier Quatermass and the Pit / Five Million Years to Earth (1967), with Andrew Keir as Professor Quatermass; Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971), in which Ralph Bates is turned into Martine Beswick; and the omnibus horror/sci-fier Asylum (1972), with an all-star cast that included Peter Cushing, Britt Ekland, Barbara Parkins, Charlotte Rampling, Herbert Lom, Richard Todd, and Sylvia Syms. On television, Ward Baker directed episodes for some of the best known British series, including The Saint and [...]...

Hollywood actor Richard Widmark has died at the age of 93.

He passed away at his home in Connecticut on Monday after a long illness, according to his wife Susan Blanchard.

The Minnesota-born star enjoyed a career spanning more than four decades, during which he made over 70 films.

He made his silver screen debut in 1947, aged 33, as a psychopathic killer in Kiss of Death - a role which earned him an Oscar nomination and scooped him the Golden Globe prize for Best Actor.

Widmark went on to star in 1950s classics like Night and the City, Broken Lance and appeared alongside Marilyn Monroe in 1952's Don't Bother to Knock.

He will also be remembered for his roles in Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) and 1964's Cheyenne Autumn. Widmark made his final big-screen outing in 1991 thriller True Colors.

He is survived by his second wife Blanchard and a daughter from his first marriage to writer Jean Hazlewood.

Richard Widmark, the actor whose menacing portrayals in numerous film noir thrillers made him synonymous with the genre, died Monday at age 93. According to news reports, the actor passed away at his home in Roxbury, CT after a long illness. Widmark appeared on both radio and the stage before making one of the most auspicious -- and audacious -- debuts in film history as the giggling killer Tommy Udo, a man who pushes an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs, in the 1947 thriller Kiss of Death; the film earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe for New Star Of The Year, and a contract with 20th Century Fox. His portrayals of hard-boiled men, sometimes criminals, sometimes just plain amoral, made him an instant star, and he played villains in The Street with No Name, Road House, and Yellow Sky. He notoriously menaced Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock, played a racist criminal in No Way Out, and was a pickpocket caught up in a Communist spy ring in Pickup on South Street. Widmark proved he could also play against type as a doctor tracking down a killer infected with the bubonic plague in Panic in the Streets, and a doomed con man in Jules Dassin's Night and the City. The actor worked consistently throughout his career, adding Westerns to his repertoire with roles in Broken Lance, The Alamo, Cheyenne Autumn (directed by John Ford), and How the West Was Won, and appeared in the Oscar-winning Judgment at Nuremberg as well. He segued into television in the 1970s as Madigan (based on his 1968 film of the same name, directed by Don Siegel), and received an Emmy nomination for 1972's Vanished, where he played the President of the United States with a secret to hide. Other notable films during the 1970s and 1980s included Murder on the Orient Express, The Domino Principle, Coma, and the film noir update Against All Odds; his last role was in the 1991 political drama True Colors, after which he retired from filmmaking. Widmark is survived by his second wife, Susan Blanchard, and his daughter, Anne, from his first marriage to screenwriter Jean Hazlewood, who died in 1997. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff...

Tragic actress Marilyn Monroe was a "self-destructive wounded bird" according to one of her leading men, veteran actor Richard Widmark. Widmark, now 87, starred opposite the blonde bombshell in 1952's Don't Bother To Knock and, although, he admits he liked Monroe personally, her psychological flaws made her a professional nightmare. He says, "I liked Marilyn, but she was God-awful to work with. Impossible, really. She would hide in her dressing room and refuse to come out. Then, when she finally would show up, she was a nervous wreck. It was all a result of fear. She was insecure about so many things and was obviously self-destructive. She was a wounded bird from the beginning." Monroe died in 1962 of a drug overdose.