The Bad Seed (1956)

I thought that this movie was just, OK. One thing that I was surprised by was that this movie is dark. Claude Daigle is a little boy who is found drowned in water. Everyone is trying to find out who is responsible for Claude's death. Ms. Fern tells Rhoda's mother Christine that Rhoda was the last person to see Claude alive. A few minutes later Leroy is talking with Rhoda and says to her that he knows that she killed Claude, and she tells him that he doesn't know what he's talking about. When Rhoda sees her mother next she finds out that Rhoda did kill Claude with her shoes by hitting him over the head. The reason why she killed him was because she wanted the metal that Claude had. When Leroy finds out that it actually was Rhoda that killed Claude, Rhoda burns Leroy to death. The one other thing besides the movie being dark was that at the very end of the movie Rhoda dies on a dock by getting struck by lightning. To me Rhoda acted like Veda from Mildred Pierce, Rhoda acted polite while acting like a spoiled brat.

"Little Caesar" director Mervyn LeRoy's controversial film "The Bad Seed" concerns a bright, well-behaved, 8-year old girl who qualifies as a sociopath because she displays no qualms about killing anybody that interferes with her lifestyle. Nevertheless, she maintains an innocence that nobody could impugn on the surface of things. This Academy Award nominated melodrama came about after novelist William Marsh wrote "The Bad Seed" in 1954 and the Broadway play written by Maxwell Anderson followed. The idea that such a youngster could commit such murderous acts is still rather sensational, and it wasn't until 1985 when television finally caught up with it and produced it as a made-for-television movie. Of course, neither LeRoy nor his scenarist John Lee Mahin, best known for "Scarface" and "Quo Vadis," could depict the grisly killings in complete detail owing to the rules of the Production Code Administration. The cast is good, especially Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones, and Eileen Heckart. Of course, Patty McCormack stands out because she has to convince us that she could perpetuate these crimes. Nancy Kelly suffers throughout because she isn't sure that she wasn't an orphan, and things get complicated for her because she discovers that her cute light girl is in fact a murderer. The initial evidence comes out after Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack) grows incensed that another school mate--Claude Daigle--has won the spelling bee contest that she believed that she should have won. Later, the school that Patty attends takes the students on a field trip near a lake, and the little boy drowns under mysterious circumstances. Mind you, this tragedy takes a drastic toll on Claude's mother, Hortense (Eileen Heckart of "Heartbreak Ridge"), and she visits the Penmarks and tries to extract every bit of information that she can get out of Rhoda about Claude's last hours alive. Meantime, the man who serves as a groundskeeper, LeRoy Jessup (Henry Jones of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"), suspects that Rhoda is a little dastard, and the two have a contentious relationship until Rhoda's well-meaning mother Christine (Nancy Kelly) warns him to back off. Imagine her surprise after she finds the spelling bee medal in Rhoda's belongings and later suspects that her darling daughter killed the groundskeeper. Naturally, Christine cannot handle this revelation any more than she can deal with the news that she was a orphan taken in by a kindly couple. The chief problem with LeRoy's adaptation is its reliance on standard-issue theatrical staging of the action. The film confines most of the action to the Penmark's rental apartment, occasionally going outside so Rhoda and Jessup can have their quiet confrontations. Altogether, despite the drawback of static staging, "The Bad Seed" hasn't lost any of its potency, and Patty McCormack is first-rate as the homicidal little girl. Although he doesn't have a major role, William Hopper walks in and out of the action as Christine's husband and Rhoda's father who has left them to take a job in Washington, D.C., in the Pentagon. The ending is a real chiller, too!

this movie is a criminal and horror movie. But it is a child criminal movie which has been released to public at that sensitive years of movie production. this is the biggest challenge for this movie. And also there is a rumor says that the ending for this movie has been changed because of the strict movie production rules. The real ending is: mother died but the daughter survived. Personally speaking, I like this ending better. Because this is the ending that keeps the continuity of the whole movie genre. Also this new ending will have more impact to viewers. But ignore the ending, it still a good movie. It shows a young potential antisocial killer's movement. Somehow psychological factors are always associate with those suspense, horror and criminal movies. But it is a big challenge for director to perform this topic.

This is one of the creepiest old movies I have ever seen. The girl Played by Patty McCormack is excellent. She is excellent in being very creepy and innocent at the same time. The song that the little girl plays seems innocent at first then gradually becomes more sinister as the movie goes on. The other music in the film is well placed and stirs your nerves the way its supposed to. The acting of the janitor Leroy is just a creepy as the girl. He acts dumb around the others but when he's with the girl he's almost normal. The drowned boys mother plays a good drunk the first time but the second she's outlandish and it makes her seem fake. The mother of the girl is a very good actress and she is believable the entire time. The camera-work is very good. I liked that it never showed anyone dying except for the little girl in the end. The costume design of the girl and her pigtails are always kept perfect. The movie is great but it's a very creepy movie because it deals with child murderers.