User reviews

Minor 1950's classic that holds up well fifty year later. The film does have its flaws. Occasionally it has the feel of a staged play--at times it seems Mrs. Penmark has to answer the door every five minutes so as to get the other major characters on screen. The Freudian psychobabble and the altered ending add an unnecessary half hour or so to the running time. And the acting can be very overwrought (although the scene in which Mrs. Penmark is screaming in the apartment as Leroy screams outside--both counterpointed by Rhoda's untalented but very loud rendition of "Au Clair de la Lune"--is a moment of high camp horror on par with anything in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?") Still the movie works, largely because of Rhoda, the eerily self controlled little murderess who despite her sweet smiles always looks at though her hair is braided a bit too tight. It helps that an actress was cast who was cute enough, but not too pretty--Patty McCormack looks like a miniature gargoyle when she drops the sunny mask and starts roaring. Leroy, the leering simple minded caretaker is almost as unsettling--the scenes in which he sadistically taunts Rhoda almost amount to a very twisted flirtation, as he is clearly more delighted than appalled by her capacity for evil (at least until he learns just how far this capacity goes).

I haven't seen the 1980's remake, but I can't see how it could top the original, if only because evil little girls in jeans and T-shirts just aren't as scary as evil little girls with hair bows and starched frocks.

"Now there's a little ray of sunshine, that one."

An occasionally riveting movie from the 50's about a sunny, charming, sociopathic little girl and her mother's desperate attempts to protect her and hide her nature. The Bad Seed sometimes makes the mistake of focusing too much on the dull adults, but overall, it's a solid movie. Good acting all around, and unlike similar modern movies like Orphan, The Bad Seed gets better as it goes along instead of imploding into an absurd mess. It feels a lot like a play, which is natural due to its evolution from novel to stage-play to film. 

I thought The Bad Seed was a sinister (and relatively timeless) gem of the 50's, and I'm sure it was quite controversial in its time. The ending was changed because of the Hays Code, in fact, and feels a bit like a cop-out as a result, but not to the extent of ruining what came before. Check it out if you're interested.

Rhoda Penmark seems like your average, sweet eight-year-old girl. When her rival at school dies in mysterious circumstances at the school picnic her mother starts to suspect that Rhoda was responsible. However, if she is correct what should she do about it?

An intriguing thriller directed by Mervyn LeRoy (Waterloo Bridge, Little Women, The Wizard of Oz, Mr Roberts, I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang). Initially not that compelling: things seem to progress in fits and starts. The plot will meander for a while, then something significant happens and makes you think that the film has kicked up a gear only for it to revert to meandering. There's enough interesting stuff happening to keep you watching but there's long stretches where it is quite easy to zone out (and not miss much). These stretches are quite dialogue-filled and dry, making me think I was watching a play rather than a movie.

However, from about the halfway mark the pace does quicken and the last quarter or so is very tense, making for riveting viewing. The ending is great and contains a wonderful, poetic twist.

While the script and direction can be a bit frustrating at times, I can't fault the performances. Ten-year-old Patty McCormack is excellent as Rhoda and Nancy Kelly is great as her mother. However, Eileen Heckart almost steals the show as Mrs Daigle, the dead boy's mother. All three received Oscar nominations.

I watched this film again last night and can't count how many times I've seen it.

What I find fascinating is the that two leads, Nancy Kelly and Patty McCormick don't seem to fit with the talent of the rest of the cast, most of whom are very good character actors.

McCormick plays the role of Rhoda as if she's in the stage play, but on film it comes off as over-acting.

Nancy Kelly is too whiny and seems to swing back and forth between being terrified and oblivious, with no middle range. One minute she thinks her daughter is a murderer and then next she's leaving her alone to go grocery shopping if there's nothing wrong. If she's trying to convey denial due to the love she has for her daughter, it doesn't work.

There are a couple of scenes that don't seem to accomplish anything as they end with someone having to go to dinner or lunch so everyone can just ignore the fact that they believe this child to be terribly disturbed and possibly worse. In this instance maybe we should consider the times in which the film was made.

Something just doesn't flow right for me, yet, I watch this movie almost every time I catch it on television. I can't explain why, but maybe that was the intention of the film maker.

My daughter, Rachel, always found this the most frightening movie she ever saw, and from a psychological perspective, it's easy to see why. Patty McCormack is magnificent as charming but evil first-grader Rhoda Penmark. Nancy Kelly is terrific in some scenes, but almost comically overwrought in others, as Rhoda's gradually terrified mother. Paul Fix deserves special mention in a strong performance as Kelly's father. And, Eileen Heckart is also a standout as the grief-stricken mother of a boy that we suspect Rhoda of killing. But, my personal favorite character is LeRoy, incredibly portrayed by Henry Jones. This is a characters I have never forgotten from the moment I first saw this one in the late 50's.

"That Rhoda is smart, almost as smart as me", he repeats for the camera several times in obsessive fashion. The ending which differed from the play has disturbed a lot of purists, but I think it has a lot of merit. Altogether, I give it 8 out of 10, very memorable and extremely well done.

I don't know how I never got around to watching this excellent thriller. Patty McCormack is riveting as Rhoda, a little girl who is a pig-tailed, smiling monster. A classmate drowns in an "accidental" death, while Rhoda comes home to mama to complain that the boy had won a spelling prize which she deserved to win. As the story develops, Rhoda's mom uncovers unsettling events surrounding her darling princess. Think of Billy Mumy in my favorite episode of the Twilight Zone, "It's a Good Life;" same character traits, but a girl this time. I was blown away by the story, the script, and the acting. I cannot recommend this film highly enough. If you have not seen it, do so.

One of the most gruesome films ever put on screen is The Bad Seed. But as terrifying as it is, The Bad Seed teaches a lesson that has to be reinforced every so often. That pure evil does indeed exist and there are no root causes in environment for it's being found. You find it here in the amoral child Rhoda Penmark, and you will find it in real life in such disparate individuals as Osama Bin-Laden or Charlie Manson.

We are fortunate indeed to have all the principal cast members from the Maxwell Anderson play that ran 334 performances on Broadway during the 1954-55 season. Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones, Eileen Heckart, Evelyn Varden, and Joan Croyden all came over from Broadway to repeat their roles. In the case of Nancy Kelly she won a Tony Award for her performance as the overwrought army wife who comes to the horrible realization she's raising an amoral monster. Henry Jones made his film debut in The Bad Seed.

When the film opens we see what looks like an all American family with father William Hopper leaving his wife Nancy Kelly and daughter Patty McCormack for some army detail that will take him away for a bit. The family lives off post with landlady Evelyn Varden.

McCormack is a strange child who doesn't seem to show real emotion like most of us though she makes a big show of affection when it suits her needs. When a boy from the school she goes to drowns and later a medal that boy won for spelling is found in McCormack's possession, Kelly is frightened out of her mind.

The acting in The Bad Seed goes to levels of excellence rarely attained by a whole cast. It's as if the cast were a functioning machine, each part reinforced by the other. They all feed off each other's excellence.

Nancy Kelly was nominated for Best Actress and Patty McCormack and Eileen Heckart were nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Heckart rules when she's on screen as the distraught mother of the drowned boy who's doing a little drowning herself in gin. Kelly, Heckart, and Joan Croyden who is the school principle all have suspicions about McCormack, but no one can prove a thing.

Henry Jones who played so many delightful rustics on the screen is an evil handyman who suspects McCormack of the foul deed also. But it's different with him because it's a case of takes one to know one. He gets dealt with in an interesting fashion.

The Bad Seed is a timeless classic, it could be updated and play today, tomorrow, the next century, the good and the bad nature of humankind doesn't change. The best summation of this film was actually delivered in another film, The List Of Adrian Messenger by George C. Scott when he comments that, "evil is, evil does exist".

While I do enjoy this film and recognize its importance on countless imitators, I did have some quibbles about it. For starters, as others have pointed out, the movie has a distinct stagey quality to it. Obviously it was based off of a play and that might account for it. It even used many of the same actors from the play. Still, one would think a veteran film director like Mervyn LeRoy would do a better job adapting it to a different medium. Another complaint I have is something that is generally seen as one of the film's positives: the performance of Eileen Heckart. She was even nominated for an Oscar for her performance. However, to me she is very over the top and unbelievable. My previous experience with Mrs. Heckart was mostly from her television work, which I always found enjoyable. Here her role is that of a grieving mother driven to drink. She is drunk in all of her scenes I believe. That exaggerated drunken behavior might play well for the stage, but on screen it comes across as a little cartoonish for such serious material.

Still, despite minor problems the movie works and works well. It moves along at a good pace, telling the creepy and sometimes chilling story of this little girl who is "born evil." Time and countless other films about evil kids might lessen the impact of this story just a bit for some, but I find it all holds up quite well. Rhoda Penmark is rotten through and through. You find her annoying at first, then quickly realize there's something unnerving about her. Some might find fault with the concept of genetic evil and reject the film on that basis alone. I don't necessarily adhere to it myself but it doesn't bother me to explore alternative ideas or theories, especially in works of fiction.

One final note: another complaint I've seen is that the movie changes the ending of the play and novel. Without spoiling that for you, I'll just say both endings have merit but I actually think the movie ending works best.

Do you really like a movie where the screenwriter and the director explains you every action? What if, besides that explanations while the things are happening, there is another explanation before, for the same action? Two explanations. One before the action (they prepare your "stupid brain" for the things to come), and then the other one, so the numb mass that they think you have inside your head is capable of understanding things. That is what this movie does. And that is what makes this a really bad movie, with a bad script and a badly directed. We don't need that explanations because we aren't idiots. Besides, there are gestures and cinematographic language, there are enough cinematographic resources to make that explicit explanations unnecesary. It is a shame, the little girl is really amazing (I rated the movie with two stars because of her acting) and the story had a lot of potential.

PS: the end credits are the height of preposterousness, the bad final joke. I can imagine the director saying: "oh my god, this movie, this end is too much for the audience. Let's introduce the characters, all of them smiling, just to let the people know that it was just a movie, that it wasn't real." And this bad joke starts with a voice saying to the audience "wait a minute!" and ends with a embarrassing spank...

as the mother of the drowned boy.... a performance that must rank with the best of the 1950s. Heckart repeated her stage role in the 1956 film with Nancy Kelly and Patty McCormack as the mother and daughter. Henry Jones (also in the stage production and excellent), Evelyn Varden, Gage Clarke, Paul Fix, Joan Croyden and Jesse White are good in support. Jones and Varden are especially good. William Hopper is and always was BLAH. But Eileen Heckart is superb as the drunken, crushed woman who knows there is something more to her son's death than she is being told. Her two scenes are riveting as she lurches across the room, begging for information, yet totally in control of the situation. Kelly, McCormack, Jones, and Varden are also good (if stagy) in their roles. Kelly seems hopelessly hammy but grows on you even though she seems to be imitating Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard most of the time. Great film, literate, interesting, riveting..... a must!

As you can tell by the other reviews, Patty McCormack is the highlight of this film. I've read neither the stage script nor the novel from which it was adapted. Insofar as the film is concerned, there is a flawed staginess to some of the acting and the way some of the dialogue is written.

In addition, while the very ending is surprising - even shocking - the scenes leading up to the very ending point to different possibilities for the conclusion that would have been more effective storytelling choices. I can't say anything more without giving it away, but I think some different scripting and directoral decisions would have made for a more satisfying finale.

All of that said, The Bad Seed is a bona fide classic that taps into timeless existential nature versus nurture questions.

I first saw this movie when I was about 10-11. I cried my eyes out....doesn't effect me the same way now, but I truly admire Patty McCormick's acting ability. A true classic and now-a-days the premise of the story is maybe truer than the writer ever would have guessed

There's not much I can say about his other then that horror movies of today don't make you feel as creeped out as this one did for me. The compelling acting of the leading girl as she goes from sweet and innocent to a cold blooded killer was convincing to the core. This psychological drama using almost nothing but its smart script and fantastic cast to tell a story of murder and guilt that'll make you second guess your ideas of having children in the future

I thought this movie was made very well. Despite what another had commented about this movie, I do feel that her facial expressions were very much eerie and the girl did a very good job as "the bad seed". The way she would look and smile whenever she lied made me think about how bad of a person she was and the look in her eyes also would show how she knew that she could manipulate anyone who got in her way. feel that for it's time it was a very good movie. It had to do something right, since it was nominated for an Oscar. So in all despite the comment prior to this one, I do feel that it was a very good movie. I thought that the ending was good too, since it gave people a sense of reality to the people who played the characters(some can't see past a character that a person plays).

From novel to stage to screen, "The Bad Seed" somehow became frozen over. No one on-hand during the material's early gestation period apparently figured out a way to open up its action. Consequently, as a movie, "The Bad Seed" is little more than a filmed play, with the actors projecting to the rafters. Several key actors from the Broadway success reprise their roles, including Patty McCormick in the lead as a sociopathic youngster in long pig-tails, but the piece has not been rethought for the screen (and what works on a stage doesn't always deliver in the more intimate medium of cinema). It isn't all McCormick's fault: she delivers a performance of a headstrong, evil child in a perfunctory, overly-rehearsed manner and probably deserved the accolades she received at the time. It is a very demanding role for a youngster. However, there are no shadings in the dialogue for McCormick to pick up on, and she's not fresh in the part. Worse, she's directed to be too terrific--enunciating very clearly and loudly, as if to reach the back rows--all the details of a complex human being ironed out. This couldn't possibly have been intentional, as the rest of the cast members are handled in the very same way. It's so forthright, uneasy, repetitive and awkward, it becomes a static transformation of stage material onto film. ** from ****