Sugar, Spice and...BELLADONNA!

This is yet another one of those late night classics I "sneaked in" when I was eight, (when I was actually supposed to be in bed). THE BAD SEED still packed quite a wallop, even then. Now, nearly a half-century since its release, the staid, somewhat static presentation certainly belies its stage play origins, and some of the acting borders on MST3K campiness. But it still retains much of its original ghoulish charm, and those only familiar with the noxious TV movie remake should definitely check out the original.

Christine Penmark has a great life with a handsome, successful husband in the military, (PERRY MASON'S William Hopper) and the cutest daughter anyone could be lucky enough to have, Rhoda. With blonde pigtails and fetching freckles, Rhoda is precocious, charming, polite, gregarious, outgoing, vicious, vindictive, manipulative, calculating, homicidal...She's 'DENNIS THE MENACE' with a sex change on a 'roid rage bender; Damien Thorn's demonic sibling in a pretty summer frock.

She easily dispatches several of the cast members with the same kind of shrug and smile she would use to ask for milk and cookies, and Christine begins a little intuitive detective work, searching her own troubled past for the clues to why, as Rhoda's crimes and her darker nature become more and more horrifyingly apparent...

Controversial in its day, I wish I could've been in the audience who attended its premiere. And the morality code be damned, I never accepted why they tacked on the "shocking" ending, though the times being what they were, I do understand why it was unavoidable. All I knew is that at the young age I was when I saw it, the concept of a little girl evil enough to make GOD strike her dead, scared the absolute Hershey squirts out of me!

Most of the cast is from the original Broadway production, and though the acting seems more geared for the stage than screen and therefore appears to be overdone, I thought Nancy Kelly was fine as the emotionally disintegrating Christine. Considering what she discovers about Rhoda, as well as what she learns about herself, it's a wonder she wasn't MORE freaked out! And what more can be said about the jaw-droppingly awesome performance by Patty McCormack? We can trace a line of child-acting evolution from her turn as Rhoda directly to outstanding screen tykes like Dakota Fanning, but we have yet to see a turn from any of our younger thespians that will give you nightmares the way Patty's has done for countless adult moviegoers. (Okay, there was Harvey Stephens as the adorable little devil who had this problem with churches...)

Henry Jones as Leroy should've damn well been honored with a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the very least. He made such an impression on me, that for years afterward, I always thought of him as "toasted Leroy." And Eileen Heckart balanced humor and histrionics with tightrope precision as Mrs. Daigle, the mother of the little boy who becomes Rhoda's first victim. Though you can't help but laugh at her at some points, your sympathy for her pain is always palpable.

It would be hard to do a bad movie with all these veterans around, and Mervyn LeRoy knew that. It's only too bad he didn't attempt to open things up a bit more to let the movie out of its "playhouse" cage. Still, it remains a classic, in spite of the fact that with what we now know about kids today and what they are capable of, in places with tragic histories like Santee and Columbine, the subject matter is sadly enough, no longer sensational or unique. Which is a lot more chilling realization than this movie could achieve for today's audiences.

A Basket of Praise for a Classic Cult Spectacular

This cult favorite is an essential, if only because it's so often spoofed that to miss out on it would be to miss key undercurrents of popular culture. An early '90s Broadway play, "Ruthless! The Musical," which starred Britney Spears, was a direct parody of "The Bad Seed"; Nick Cave named his band "The Bad Seeds" after it, and I think I even caught a parody-nod to "The Bad Seed" in an episode of "South Park" the other day. In fact, little Rhoda Penmark, with her saccharine grins and gag-me-with-a-Sunday-school-prize curtsies, might also be a parody of sorts: a very pointed and devastating one directed at 1950s Leave-it-to-Beaver ideals.

With a tiny budget and a cast mostly composed of actors from the Broadway play, director Mervyn LeRoy bottled this explosive film inside a small if tasteful family apartment and turned mother (Nancy Kelly) and daughter (Patty McCormack) loose to seethe, steam-boiler like, within the four walls. The father (William Hopper) is predictably benign and clueless, not to mention forever absent on a lengthy business trip, the purpose of which is never explained.

Don't be deterred by the tendency of websites and video stores to sweep this film into the "Horror" category; while "The Bad Seed" may be partly responsible for spawning the mini-genre of child axe-murderer movies, "The Bad Seed" itself is actually straight drama, with a plot no less improbable than that of most mainstream pictures of its era. Kelly delivers the screen performance of her career--and it is mesmerizing, although it clearly belongs to the antique era of high-glamour and gilded studio powerhouses. Eileen Heckart more than deservedly took the Golden Globe for her turn as Mrs. Daigle; I think she should have won the Oscar.

As much as any movie made during the Eisenhower era, "The Bad Seed" takes the domestic paradigms of that era and stands them on their heads. Nothing is what it seems, and assumption upon assumption is shattered as the cherished homefront approaches the point of total collapse. In this way, the movie is both a nice piece of fifties kitch and a harbinger of the chaos of the sixties. There's also some not-so-subtle symbolism creeping around in the little apartment--for example, practically every scene depicts some sort of cross-shaped object in the background, or the cross of shadows from a window pane.

An important movie, a must for serious film buffs.

FINALLY on DVD -- a must have!

This movie is still one of my all time favorites and wears well even by today's standards, albeit being (unintentionally) "campy" in several respects. It's a classic Greek Tragedy without the annoying chorus.

Little Rhoda Penmark, creepily/perfectly played by Patty McCormack, is a bit different than her peers. When she wants something she's willing to kill and does so without the slightest compunction. Christine, Rhoda's increasingly distraught mother, slowly realizes she has unknowingly passed on this "trait" to her daughter as she discovers the identity of her biological mother, an infamous serial killer. There are plenty of histrionics to go around as Nancy Kelley (Christine) wrings her hands and pounds on her womb at each moment of new terrible insight, and then there's Hortense Daigle. She's the mother of one of Rhoda's young victims and appears several times in various stages of inebriation and overwhelming grief. Eileen Heckart still brings tears to my eyes as Hortense, as maudlin as she is. Although all of the cast is excellent (even William Hopper, whose role is blessedly small, is OK as Rhoda's clueless dad), the one other outstanding character is Leroy, the apartment house handyman. Henry Jones is the semi-literate malcontent who takes glee in spraying a hose at Rhoda's feet and ploddingly uncovers the truth about Rhoda's avaricious habits while teasing her about her heartless apathy toward her classmate's death. Rhoda takes care of Leroy with only 3 kitchen matches and a nice pile of excelsior Leroy naps on in the basement.

Christine blows all her gaskets after Leroy is barbecued and gives Rhoda a fatal dose of a "new vitamins" (cautious Rhoda asks to see the bottle the soi-disant vitamins are in), puts the child to bed, then shoots herself in the head. Luckily little Rhoda is saved by the neighbors who hear the gun shot, and in the end of the play and novel Christine dies. Not so for Hollywood in the 50s, so there is an inane contrived ending with a lachrymose, mummy-wrap-headed Christine on the phone with hubby while sneaky Rhoda ventures out into the stormy night to retrieve the penmanship medal Mom tossed in the lake where her classmate/victim Claude drowned. Boom! God strikes Rhoda with a bolt from heaven and she goes up in a bright poof.

My biggest gripe with the DVD is the ill-conceived inclusion of Charles Busch on the film commentary with Patty McCormack. It's painfully obvious he's not even familiar with the movie and he adds nothing but a few really dumb questions/comments. The commentary by McCormack is great and she adeptly deflects some of Busch's stupidity but he's still an irritant.