The Bad Seed (1956)

How sad is this?

good back-story, and good acting

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This movie is by far my favorite "old" film that I have seen. I LOVE psychology and I find murderers especially fascinating to study. To start, Patty McCormack was incredible; she created Roda's character seamlessly with her seemingly perfect, sweet exterior while also showing her empathy-lacking, ruthless interior (a true psychopath!). Nancy Kelly was also fantastic as the mother; her facial expressions really showed the internal battle she was facing with regard to how she should react to her child. The eerie mood of this film was created flawlessly by many aspects of the movie. The beginning and end of the film were parallels in their settings of a dark, ominous storm. LeRoy continues to play with lighting throughout the film, with the room getting darker as Roda admits her crimes to her mother. Roda's creepy piano playing adds to the mood as well. I really enjoyed how this film brought up the age-old question of nature vs nuture. Of course, now, we have a better understanding of how it is more nature AND nurture, but this movie probably opened many people's eyes to such a possibility. Another uncomfortable thought that the film brings up: maybe we all are partly "bad seeds". Now, we must ask ourselves how to deal with it.

This film is staged ham. Not surprisingly since most of the cast was apparently held over from its Broadway run. Only the mother Nancy Kelly seems to have caught on that she's acting in a film here. Everyone else is hamming it up for the cheap seats. That kid. Yikes. She delivers her lines like a brat in a community theatre production of Little Orphan Annie. This is conceivably the worst performance by a juvenile I have ever seen committed to film. Ever. The drunken mom of the dead boy? Holy ham bones, Shakespeare, she's playing to seats to cheap and so far away she might as well be in Yankee Stadium. Similarly, the teacher and the gardener fair very poorly. Hard to believe a veteran director of the big screen would let his actors run away from him like this. Maybe it would have worked on Philco's Monster Horror Chiller Theatre or whatever they called it on the 50s b00b tube.

Patty McCormick spent her whole life being referred to as "The Bad Seed." This is a study in how much something evil can manifest itself in the world when left unchecked. The clueless adults in the girl's life are at the center of everything. A friend once told me that if you act like a worm, someone is going to step on you. Patty (Rhoda) is utterly evil. She will do anything, including murder because she is psychotic. She also has the wherewithal to pull the wool over the eyes of others. I'm giving this an eight because I think the ending is one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. There is no evidence to say that this is an act of the supernatural. If they were going to pull that out, they would have needed a little bit of foreshadowing.

When I initially read the description of this film I was not interested in it what so ever. But, I gave the film a chance and boy was I surprised. The film is about a young girl suspected by her parents, of killing one of her classmates from school The Bad Seed uses great camera angles, fast quick transitions, and excellent camera work to really bring this film alive. I felt Patty McCormack did an outstanding job playing Rhonda. As I watched the film you could feel the grasp that Rhonda had over the entire family. Her short tempered, dark, outraged attitude was acted out very well in my opinion. Melvin LeRoy being the director of the Wizard of Oz, i felt took on a out of his comfort zone challenge by directing this film. If you ask me, I think it payed off very well. Great film from beginning to end.