Told mostly in flashback, KNOCK ON ANY DOOR is about a conscious-stricken attorney fighting to save an "abused and troubled" youth from the electric chair. Andrew Morton (Bogie), who specializes working for rich clients, defies his law partners’ wishes to defend Nick "Pretty Boy" Romano. Morton feels responsible for the young man's violent life, having failed six years earlier to adequately defend his falsely accused father, who then died in jail. The bitter Nick drifted into a life of crime, advancing over those six years from petty theft to what he's now being accused of, a cop murder. Bogart, better toupeed than usual, gives a impassioned performance as the attorney. And in his screen debut, John Derek is excellent as Romano, aging quite believably from crew-cutted teen to strutting hood. Emotional and powerful ending sequence where Andrew gives his closing argument, as he pleads for the jury to spare his client's life, not just about Nick's tormented and troubled past, but also for the future in preventing other Nicks from evolving out of their depressed and hopeless crime-infested neighborhoods. The kind of boys you find in those neighborhoods if you knock on any door.Well directed by Nicholas Ray, KNOCK ON ANY DOOR was produced by Bogart's own production company, Santana.
KNOCK ON ANY DOOR (1949)
Bogie battles for bitter boy
Told mostly in flashback, KNOCK ON ANY DOOR is about a conscious-stricken attorney fighting to save an "abused and troubled" youth from the electric chair. Andrew Morton (Bogie), who specializes working for rich clients, defies his law partners’ wishes to defend Nick "Pretty Boy" Romano. Morton feels responsible for the young man's violent life, having failed six years earlier to adequately defend his falsely accused father, who then died in jail. The bitter Nick drifted into a life of crime, advancing over those six years from petty theft to what he's now being accused of, a cop murder. Bogart, better toupeed than usual, gives a impassioned performance as the attorney. And in his screen debut, John Derek is excellent as Romano, aging quite believably from crew-cutted teen to strutting hood. Emotional and powerful ending sequence where Andrew gives his closing argument, as he pleads for the jury to spare his client's life, not just about Nick's tormented and troubled past, but also for the future in preventing other Nicks from evolving out of their depressed and hopeless crime-infested neighborhoods. The kind of boys you find in those neighborhoods if you knock on any door.Well directed by Nicholas Ray, KNOCK ON ANY DOOR was produced by Bogart's own production company, Santana.
