the audience applauded

The acting in this movie is really good.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

I was mostly disappointed in Humphrey Bogart's performance as lawyer Andrew Morton who was too busy to defend and take care of a storekeepers assault charge while his little store was in the process of being robbed. The result being another lawyer from his firm who was unprepared to fight the case sent this poor innocent immigrant Italian storekeeper to the hoosegow where he unexpectedly dies of a heart attack and leaves his family without a father. The now fatherless son named Nick Romano played by John Derek is lost without his father's financial and parental support and guidance and ends up running with the wrong crowd in a desperate means to make some quick money by robbing storefronts and mugging innocent working stiffs. As the boy Nick Romano grows into a young man and learns his thieving trade in the school of hard "knocks" he runs into lawyer Andrew Morton who is burdened with a guilty conscience for the avoidable death of Nick's father while wrongfully in prison. So lawyer Andrew Morton attempts to keep an eye on the troubled youth Nick Romano but to no avail as Nick is eventually charged with the murder of an on duty police officer in Nicks neighborhood.The story of how Nick Romano found himself on trial for the murder of a police officer is told rather boorishly through Andrew Morton's interpretation to twelve (12) jurors. Typically in movie scenes that involve a prosecuting and defense attorney(s) there is a heated exchange while the accused is on the stand. In this case though the endless barrage of questions that the prosecutor district attorney Kerman played by George Macready throws at the befuddled accused Nick Romano is so choreographed that I thought I was witnessing a high school debate and not a murder trial.It was difficult to continue watching what seemed to be an ill prepared cast to handle a court room drama such that my mind kept wandering off as the film was unable to hold this viewers attention. Even Humphrey Bogart could not save this poorly delivered cookie cutter court room drama picture so the film title in my view would suggest that the vendors should please pass by my door as this dog bites with his honest review.p.s. Bogie's best picture in my view was (1951) The African Queen with co-star Katharine Hepburn and this is a must see if you want to see Bogart at his very best. Please read my full review on The African Queen dated August 04th, 2016

. . . This question from sociopath Nick "Pretty Boy" Romano is the crux of KNOCK ON ANY DOOR. If you paraphrase what Nick's defense lawyer, "Andrew Morton" (Humphrey Bogart) says to the judge before Nick is sentenced to fry on an upcoming "Fri-day" (you can't make this stuff up!), it sounds like this: America's treatment of Her sociopaths is inhumane. Nick says several times that all he really wants to do is to "die young, and leave a pretty corpse." Anyone familiar with the Ethel Rosenberg case knows that electrocution frequently turns the victim into smoldering meat, which is not only NOT pretty, but not very appetizing, either. KNOCK ON ANY DOOR makes it clear that Nick has very little fun terrorizing all the local business and automobile owners with his constant armed thefts. Driving his wife to suicide is very hard on him. Killing his first cop gives Nick the jitters. Therefore, counselor Morton demands that all high school dropouts and first-time felons be tested while they're youths (still "pretty," and Un-fried) to see if they're sociopaths. If they are, Society owes it to them to provide a fatal overdose of something that will allow them to rest easy, "die young, and leave a pretty corpse" WITHOUT going through the trauma of leading a life of crime, followed by 20 years on Death Row, and public burning in the electric chair (or whatever the flavor of the month is on Death Row). After all, as Nick says here, they "didn't ask to get born."

While it may be argued that the picture presents an extremely liberal viewpoint on the causes of teenage crime, it is nonetheless an excellent film. John Derek, as Nick Romano, is absolutely fabulous in the lead role. He is certainly depicted here as a victim of society. When his father dies in prison, after being sent there due to shoddy work by his attorney, Derek becomes embittered and turns to crime. The reform school is shown as a place that hardens this young man.He meets his Juliet and for a time things are looking up until the lure of the streets, his inability to handle a job, the poor company he keeps and the crowd that he runs around with, all lead to tragedy.Humphrey Bogart is equally impressive in the role as the attorney for Nick. His impassioned plea for mercy at the end of the film is done extremely well.Look for Sid Melton as a young hood with a variety of marvelous supporting performances, especially that of George MacReady as a relentless prosecuting attorney.

Humphrey Bogart's first film as executive producer, alas, turned out not to be one of his best efforts – albeit an interesting one for various reasons (for instance, as an updated version of DEAD END [1937]); still, the star's own performance is more relaxed than usual – but that may be because, for a good portion of the running-time, he takes a back seat to John Derek (in his debut).Being Bogart's first film after his Warner Bros. contract was up, the tone of this Columbia production is entirely different: he plays a big-city lawyer defending a young hoodlum (Derek) from the slums – and whom he has known all his life – on a murder charge. The plot takes the form of a flashback to Derek's hard life; the fact that it's narrated by Bogart during the trial, as a way of demonstrating how society is guilty of what the boy has become, doesn't ring true – and, like I said, basically reduces the star to a supporting role (which, perhaps, was a deliberate choice on Bogart's part so that he could focus more on the production side of the picture). However, there's nothing particularly new about this section of the story – we've seen countless like it before and since – so that the film only really comes to life when the trial proper starts and, particularly, during Bogart's numerous confrontations with reptilian prosecutor George Macready and no-nonsense judge Barry Kelley; the downbeat twist at the end is unexpected and, therefore, very effective. The star re-teamed with director Ray for the far superior psychological drama IN A LONELY PLACE (1950), which I had the good fortune to watch on the big screen at London's National Film Theatre last month.Bogie is one of those Hollywood legends that I'd be interested in catching all of their work; I still have a few to go through, however – some of the earlier stuff and the lesser films from the 1940s and 1950s have rarely, if ever, turned up in my neck of the woods (KNOCK ON ANY DOOR included – and which I only managed to watch thanks to the generosity of a fellow HTF member)!