Richard Widmark opposite Marilyn Monroe is a casting combination I never would have considered, and if you didn't know anything about the movie going in, you might think that they would be a couple at the center of the story. In a way they are, but in an entirely different way. Monroe's character is Nell Forbes, though I don't recall her last name being mentioned. As the story progresses, she becomes a very dark character, and it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that she displayed signs of mental illness. Though by that time, the scars on her wrist reveal a troubled past and you really don't know what you're in for. It gets really terrifying when it looks like she might push the young child she's babysitting out the window of a high rise! The entire tenor of the picture gets very bizarre at that point, as Jed Towers (Widmark, but again, where did the last name come from?) begins his transformation from a self centered heel into an 'understanding' human being. I have the term 'understanding' in quotes because it relates to his embattled relationship with hotel lounge singer Lyn Lesley (Anne Bancroft), and the word comes into play in a couple different parts of the film.
There's a very realistic looking scene near the end of the picture when Jed makes the save for the young girl Bunny (Donna Corcoran) which made me do a sit up and take notice. Grabbing Monroe's character by the shoulders, he quite violently knocks her to the ground as Bunny's mother reacts to her daughter's well-being. I had to replay that scene a couple of times because it didn't look faked, and appeared like Monroe took a pretty good slam to the ground.
Watching Marilyn Monroe in this film goes some way to dispel the idea that she was just a fluff actress. She might have been had she been typecast with the poofy glamor roles like the one as Sugar Kane Kowalczyk in "Some Like it Hot", even if that one did come out a few years after this one. Personally, I think she did her best work in 1961's "The Misfits".
I got a kick out of the line of dialog in my summary above. It was spoken by Elisha Cook Jr. in the role of Nell's Uncle Eddie, who well knew of his niece's troubled past. He was explaining to her how people with problems can recover to overcome them successfully, but all I could think of was how it was a premonition of Marilyn Monroe's future romance and eventual marriage to baseball great Joe DiMaggio. Sometimes things just work out that way.
There's a very realistic looking scene near the end of the picture when Jed makes the save for the young girl Bunny (Donna Corcoran) which made me do a sit up and take notice. Grabbing Monroe's character by the shoulders, he quite violently knocks her to the ground as Bunny's mother reacts to her daughter's well-being. I had to replay that scene a couple of times because it didn't look faked, and appeared like Monroe took a pretty good slam to the ground.
Watching Marilyn Monroe in this film goes some way to dispel the idea that she was just a fluff actress. She might have been had she been typecast with the poofy glamor roles like the one as Sugar Kane Kowalczyk in "Some Like it Hot", even if that one did come out a few years after this one. Personally, I think she did her best work in 1961's "The Misfits".
I got a kick out of the line of dialog in my summary above. It was spoken by Elisha Cook Jr. in the role of Nell's Uncle Eddie, who well knew of his niece's troubled past. He was explaining to her how people with problems can recover to overcome them successfully, but all I could think of was how it was a premonition of Marilyn Monroe's future romance and eventual marriage to baseball great Joe DiMaggio. Sometimes things just work out that way.