When Eddie checks up on her, he is appalled to find Nell wearing Ruth's things and orders her to take them off. Seeing the striking young Nell from his room directly across an air shaft, Jed calls her on the house phone alternately curious and put-off, she rebuffs his aggressive advances. After she puts the child to bed, Nell tries on Ruth's negligee, then her jewelry, perfume, and lipstick. The Joneses leave for an awards convention banquet downstairs.

Meanwhile, elevator operator Eddie introduces his reticent niece, Nell Forbes, to guests Peter and Ruth Jones as a babysitter for their daughter Bunny. He strongly rejects her dismissal, but ultimately retreats to his room. Jed has checked in at the same hotel and approaches her she explains that she sees no future with him because his coldness with people shows he 'lacks an understanding heart'. She muses to the bartender about her relationship with an airline pilot, Jed Towers, revealing she had ended their six-month relationship with a letter. Lyn Lesley is the lounge singer at New York's McKinley Hotel. How he copes with the situation ends up profoundly impacting all three lives. He starts flirting with her, but over the evening her strange behavior makes him increasingly aware that she is unhinged. Monroe is featured as a disturbed babysitter watching a child at the same New York hotel where a pilot, played by Widmark, is staying.

The screenplay was written by Daniel Taradash, based on the 1951 novel Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong. Don't Bother to Knock is a 1952 American psychological thriller starring Richard Widmark and Marilyn Monroe and directed by Roy Ward Baker.

Dont bother to knock