The Bad Seed (1956)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Rhoda Penmark is a well-mannered 8-year-old little lady - and an efficient, unfeeling killer. And in this spellbinding chronicle of evil, whatever Rhoda wants, she ruthlessly gets. Her mother Christine (Nancy Kelly), reluctantly made to see her offspring's moral blindness at work, is heartrendingly torn between the love for the child she bore and grief for Rhoda's victims.
- Actors:
- Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones, Eileen Heckart, Evelyn Varden, William Hopper, Paul Fix, Jesse White, Gage Clarke, Joan Croydon, Frank Cady, Frances Bavier, Violet Cane, Vivian Clermont, Shelley Fabares, Kathy Garver, Don C. Harvey, Edna Holland, Dayton Lummis, Natalie Masters
- Directors:
- Mervyn LeRoy
- Writers:
- John Lee Mahin, Maxwell Anderson
- Others:
- Hal Rosson
- Genres:
- Classics, Thrillers
More like The Bad Seed
Reviews (1) of The Bad Seed
Even the Furniture Looks Tired - The Bad Seed review by griggs
A two-hour film that feels like six. Maybe Rhoda murdered the editor.
A pigtailed eight-year-old bumping off a classmate for his penmanship medal ought to hold your attention. Instead, I spent most of the film eyeing the clock. The stage origins show in all those living-room speeches. Even the furniture looks tired.
Patty McCormack curtsies sweetly and stares like a shark. I'm not sure who's scarier: Rhoda or Evelyn Varden as the interfering neighbour upstairs, who analyses everyone uninvited and treats Rhoda like a charming houseplant.
The last five minutes are bonkers. A thunderstorm turns up to make sure crime doesn't pay. Then the cast comes out for a curtain call that ends with a spanking. It's welcome lunacy, though it arrives after my patience has already clocked off.
I can see the cult appeal. Membership looks exhausting.