Knock on Any Door (1949)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Nicholas Ray

Writers:

John Monks Jr. (writer)
Willard Motley (novel)

Release Date:

22 February 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Drama

Plot:

Andrew Morton is an attorney who made it out of the slums. Nick Romano is his client, a young man with a long string of crimes behind him...

Plot Keywords:

Slum | Attorney | Suicide | Trial | Punch To Face

Cast

Humphrey Bogart	...	Andrew Morton
John Derek	...	Nick Romano
George Macready	...	Dist. Atty. Kerman
Allene Roberts	...	Emma
Candy Toxton	...	Adele Morton (as Susan Perry)
Mickey Knox	...	Vito
Barry Kelley	...	Judge Drake

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Lake Arrowhead, San Bernardino National Forest, California, USA

Company:

Santana Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

This was the first film made by Humphrey Bogart's independent production company, Santana. He chose Nicholas Ray to direct because he had greatly admired his directorial debut They Live by Night (1948).

Goofs:

Continuity: In the Morton office, after Ed stands up and leaves, the Morton's right hand is on the desk. In the next shot his right hand is high over the desk.

Quotes:

Nick Romano: Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in True Romance (1993)

Confused Message

Knock on Any Door was Humphrey Bogart's first film after leaving Warner Brothers. He and his Santana productions did a few for Columbia at that time.

It's a throwback film to the Thirties, a time it was seen that all cures to society's ills was a better social program. That's the message that attorney Bogart was driving home to the jury, that for a few better breaks his client John Derek would be a solid citizen.

Actually during the course of the film, what we see of John Derek's life showed he had some opportunities and blew them. It also did show that the family had some rotten luck. A mixed message to say the least.

The film shows Bogart as an attorney and his involvement over the years with young John Derek who was making his screen debut. Derek has been arrested for killing a policeman after a bar stickup and he turns to Bogart for help. The first part of the film is Bogart's opening remarks to the jury at the murder trial and we see in flashback, Derek's life and how it intertwined with Bogart's.

The second half was the trial itself and the aftermath. George MacReady as the District Attorney probably gave the best performance in the movie. Another reviewer described MacReady as evil. Granted he usually is in his roles, but here he's just one very effective prosecutor.

Yet Knock On Any Door, confused as it is, does still raise some relevant questions. The scenes in the reform school are still being shown today and had their not been Code restrictions might have been more graphic. I only have to cite the movie Sleepers from a few years back.

Bogart fans will like it and John Derek certainly merited the nickname "pretty boy."