The Bad Seed (1956 film)

The Bad Seed
Directed by	Mervyn LeRoy
Produced by	Mervyn LeRoy
Based on	The Bad Seed by Maxwell Anderson The Bad Seed by William March
Starring	Nancy Kelly William Hopper Patty McCormack Henry Jones Eileen Heckart Evelyn Varden
Music by	Alex North
Cinematography	Harold Rosson
Edited by	Warren Low
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release dates	September 12, 1956 (1956-09-12)
Running time	129 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1 million
Box office	$4.1 million (rentals)[1]

The Bad Seed is a 1956 American horror-thriller film with elements of film noir directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones, and Eileen Heckart.

The film is based upon the 1954 play of the same name by Maxwell Anderson, which in turn is based upon William March's 1954 novel The Bad Seed. The play was adapted by John Lee Mahin for the screenplay of the film.

Plot

On her piano, eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack) plays the French song "Au clair de la lune", while her father (William Hopper) says his goodbyes to her and his wife, Christine (Nancy Kelly), as he goes away on military duty. Their neighbor and landlord, Monica Breedlove (Evelyn Varden), comes in with a present for Rhoda – a locket. Rhoda, looking pristine and proper in her perfect pinafore dress and long blonde pigtails, thanks Monica for the gift. She then tap dances on the hard floor. Monica notices Rhoda's tap shoes, and Rhoda says that adding the taps to the shoes was her own idea. They then discuss a penmanship medal competition that Rhoda lost to her schoolmate, Claude Daigle; Monica speaks of it as a childish disappointment, but Rhoda's face darkens with fury. Christine and Rhoda leave for the school picnic at a nearby lake.

Later, Christine is having lunch with Monica and friends when they learn on the radio that a child has drowned in the lake where Rhoda's school was having their picnic. Christine worries that the drowned child could be her daughter, but a follow-up report indicates that it was Rhoda's schoolmate, Claude, the penmanship winner. Relieved that Rhoda is alive, Christine worries that her daughter might be traumatized by seeing the boy’s corpse. When Rhoda returns, however, she is unfazed by the incident and goes about her daily activities.

Rhoda's teacher later visits Christine, revealing that Rhoda was the last person seen with Claude that day on the wharf and that she was seen grabbing at Claude's penmanship medal. As the two women sit talking, Claude's mother, Mrs. Daigle (Eileen Heckart), enters, visibly drunk, and accuses Rhoda's teacher of knowing something that she is not telling.

Later that night, Christine finds the penmanship medal in Rhoda's room and demands an explanation. Rhoda lies that Claude let her have the medal after she won a bet. Later, however, Christine catches Rhoda trying to sneak out to the incinerator to dispose of her tap shoes, and Christine realizes that Rhoda must have hit Claude with the shoes, which explains the half-moon shaped bruises on his forehead and hands. A tearful Rhoda admits that she killed the boy and also confirms Christine's suspicion that she murdered a neighbor lady when they lived in Wichita, the sooner to obtain a trifle the elderly woman had promised her. Christine orders Rhoda to burn the shoes in the incinerator.

In the midst of the revelations about Rhoda, Christine's vague suspicions about having been adopted are confirmed: she is the biological daughter of a notorious and infamous serial killer, Bessie Denker, and was adopted at two years of age by her foster father and his late wife. Christine now worries that Bessie (and therefore Christine herself) is the cause of Rhoda's sociopathy, and that her homicidal behavior is genetic, not subject to influence, let alone reversal, by parenting or a wholesome environment.

The next day, when Rhoda is playing in the garden, the caretaker, LeRoy (Henry Jones), heckles her that she killed Claude with her shoes and that he, LeRoy, took the burnt shoes as evidence. When Rhoda reacts in anger, LeRoy realizes his accusation, made in jest, is actually true. He opens the incinerator and finds what remains of the shoes. Mrs. Daigle, drunk, returns to see Christine and demands to speak with Rhoda. Outside, off camera, Rhoda sets sleeping LeRoy's bedding ablaze to keep her secret safe. From the apartment window, Christine and Monica watch him burn. Christine babbles incoherently after witnessing the death; Monica realizes that Christine believes Rhoda is guilty of something awful, but still has no inkling that Christine believes Rhoda to have committed murder. That night, a visibly calm Christine tells Rhoda that she dropped the medal into the lake, and then gives her daughter a lethal dose of sleeping pills, telling her they are her new vitamins. Then she attempts to kill herself with a gunshot to the head. Instead of being killed, however, Rhoda and Christine are found and taken to a hospital and both survive.

Later, in the middle of the night during a rainstorm, Rhoda sneaks out in a rain slicker and goes to the lake and out on the wharf in an attempt to retrieve the penmanship medal. A bright dash of lightning violently strikes Rhoda, killing her instantly and putting an end to her evil.

Cast

Production

At the end of the film, the cast is introduced during a theatrical-style curtain call. After her credit is read, Nancy Kelly gives Patty McCormack a good spanking. Both are visibly laughing, perhaps to remind an unnerved audience that the story they have seen is fictional. The spanking continues as the film fades out; a screen card then requests that the audience not divulge the climax.

Although the novel and play had the mother dying and the evil child surviving, the Motion Picture Production Code did not allow for "crime to pay." The ending of the film thus has it the other way around, with Christine's life being saved by the local hospital and Rhoda being struck down by lightning while trying to retrieve the penmanship medal from the lake.

In another move to appease the censors, Warner Bros. added an "adults only" tag to the film's advertising.^[2]

Reception

This film was one of Warner Bros' biggest hits of the year, earning $4.1 million in theatrical rentals domestically against a $1 million budget and was also one of the year's top 20 at the box office.^[2] Also, The Bad Seed was one of the ten most popular movies at the British box office in 1956.^[3] Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 68%, based on 25 reviews, with a rating average of 7.3/10.^[4]

Academy Awards

Nominations^[5]

• Best Actress: Nancy Kelly
• Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Eileen Heckart
• Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Patty McCormack
• Best Cinematography (Black-and-White): Hal Rosson

Other honors

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2001: AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – Nominated^[6]

Remakes

The Bad Seed was remade for television in 1985, adapted by George Eckstein and directed by Paul Wendkos. It starred Blair Brown, Lynn Redgrave, David Carradine, Carrie Welles, Richard Kiley, Chad Allen, and Christa Denton. This version used the original ending as in the March novel. This version was generally not well-received by either critics or audiences.

Popular culture

The band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is named after the novel, play, and film.^[7]

See also

• List of American films of 1956

References

External links

• The Bad Seed at the Internet Movie Database
• The Bad Seed at AllMovie
• The Bad Seed at the TCM Movie Database
• The Bad Seed at the American Film Institute Catalog
• The Bad Seed at Rotten Tomatoes