John-Candy Movie Reviews

Bogart managed to excel in every movie he was ever in, with only a few exceptions, like THE OKLAHOMA KID, a Western in which he played a Mexican bandit, complete with utterly unconvincing accent. Apart from that and a couple of other 1930s roles, Bogart managed to shine even when the rest of the movie was vile.

The problem with KNOCK ON ANY DOOR is twofold. One is the highly artificial script, in which much of the film is told in flashback in what is supposed to be the opening remarks at a trial. It is unbalancing to have so much of the film told in flashback at a moment in a trial when such personal remarks would have been inappropriate. As a result, the trial ends up feeling not so much like a trial as a parody of a trial. The second problem is that the movie is a bit heavy handed in its social commentary. That society can have a pervasive and overwhelming influence on the ultimate destiny of a young person had been developed in the late 19th century by people like Jane Addams, and had become commonplace in the following decades. Many films of the 1930s focused on the importance of providing kids with more positive social influences, like DEAD END and BOY'S TOWN. KNOCK ON ANY DOOR tries to get a lot of mileage out of an idea that was hardly new. During the heavier of the social commentary moments, I kept thinking of a line from Monty Python, when the Church Police arrest a young kid who had murdered a parson. Someone points out in the arrest that society was to blame. "We'll be arresting him [i.e., society] too."

Nonetheless, this is an interesting and effective film, though somewhat marred by social sentiment and some serious structural problems in the script.