Reel Classics: The Bad Seed

To begin today’s Reel Classic, I will quote from a descrip­tion of the movie from the mag­a­zine Paste: “The Bad Seed is one of the most dis­turb­ing American por­traits of pure psy­chopa­thy or sociopa­thy, com­ing from the least sus­pect­ed of all sources: an 8‑year-old girl. The pierc­ing eyes of lit­tle blonde, pig­tailed Rhoda (Patty McCormack) are ter­ri­fy­ing to behold, more so once we begin to sus­pect what lays behind her façade.” 

Yes, we are talk­ing about a young girl who by all appear­ances is man­ner­ly and the “per­fect” daugh­ter.  However, below the sur­face what we come to see appears to be pure evil.  The Bad Seed was released in 1956 and was based on a suc­cess­ful Broadway play of the same name.  The play opened in 1954 and ran for 334 per­for­mances, with Nancy Kelly (who plays Rhoda’s mom, Christine) win­ning a Tony Award for Best Actress.

Many of the cast from the orig­i­nal play reprised their roles in the screen adap­ta­tion, includ­ing Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Eileen Heckart (Hortense Daigle), Evelyn Varden (Monica), Henry Jones (Leroy), and Joan Croydon (Miss Fern).  Others in the film include William Hopper (Paul Drake in the Perry Mason TV series) as Rhoda’s father Col. Kenneth Penmark, Jesse White (Emory), Paul Fix (Richard Bravo), and Frank Cady (Henry Daigle). You may rec­og­nize Fix as the sher­iff in The Rifleman and Cady from Petticoat Junction and Green Acres.  The play was based on the nov­el of the same name writ­ten by William March.

The sto­ry begins with Rhoda prepar­ing to attend a school pic­nic on the lake.  Her father is prepar­ing to go to Washington where he has been sum­moned for mil­i­tary duty.  We learn rather quick­ly that moth­er and father dote on their daugh­ter.  The land­la­dy of the build­ing in which the fam­i­ly resides, Monica, pays a vis­it.  Rhoda tells Monica about how she lost a pen­man­ship con­test to a class­mate, Claude Daigle, and that she should have won the medal giv­en to the win­ner.  She obvi­ous­ly is angry about not win­ning the con­test, and we begin to see a hint of what lies beneath the sweet and pris­tine Rhoda in her pinafore dress, tap shoes and pigtails.

Rhoda’s mom, Christine, is hav­ing lunch with friends when a report comes over the radio that a child has drowned at the school pic­nic.  Christine imme­di­ate­ly heads for the lake to check on her daughter—fearing she is trau­ma­tized by this ter­ri­ble event.  We learn that Claude Daigle was found in the lake drowned with odd marks on his head and hands—and the medal he won is miss­ing.  Not only is Rhoda not trau­ma­tized, she appears to be com­plete­ly unfazed by her class­mate’s death and asks for a sand­wich as she did­n’t get to eat at the picnic.

It is not long after they have returned home before Miss Fern, Rhoda’s teacher, appears at the door express­ing con­cern about Rhoda.  It turns out that Rhoda was seen with Claude right before his death and she was grab­bing at the medal he had won in the con­test.  She implies that Rhoda may have had some part in the death of Claude and is no longer wel­come to return to the school. About this time there is a bang­ing at the door, and it is Claude’s par­ents.  Mr. Daigle is hum­ble and apolo­getic, but Hortense Daigle is angry and drunk.  She accus­es Miss Fern of with­hold­ing infor­ma­tion and demands to know what hap­pened to her son.  They all final­ly leave, and Christine is obvi­ous­ly dis­tressed by what she has heard.  She lat­er finds the medal hid­den away in Rhoda’s bed­room and is uncer­tain as to what is the truth.

Christine’s father, Richard Bravo, comes for a vis­it and Christine shares with him a recur­ring night­mare she has had for years relat­ing to her own child­hood. Her father admits to her that she was adopt­ed and her bio­log­i­cal moth­er was a ser­i­al killer. She express­es the fear that her own bio­log­i­cal roots may have some­thing to do with Rhoda’s behav­iors. Her father tries to assure her that it is nur­ture, not nature, that influ­ences behav­ior. Christine’s fears about her daugh­ter con­tin­ue to grow as she learns more about past behaviors. 

As usu­al, I won’t pro­vide any spoil­ers, but as the sto­ry pro­gress­es it becomes more tense and even more dis­turb­ing. We learn more about Rhoda’s behav­iors and her moth­er’s response to what she learns about her daugh­ter that she had nev­er before suspected.

The Bad Seed was one of the biggest hits of 1956 and fin­ished the year in the top 20 in earn­ings in the United States, and in the top 10 in Britain.  It received four Academy Award nom­i­na­tions includ­ing Best Actress (Nancy Kelly as Christine), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Eileen Heckart as Hortense Daigle and Patty McCormack as Rhoda) and Best Cinematography.  Patty McCormack was ten years old at the time and was nom­i­nat­ed for an Oscar.  Prior to the 1950’s child and teenage actors such as Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland would receive an hon­orary juve­nile Oscar. Reportedly her nom­i­na­tion ini­ti­at­ed a trend where young actors would be nom­i­nat­ed for the Oscar. (Note: Patty Duke was the first “child” actor to win an Oscar for her 1962 role in The Miracle Worker.)  

As men­tioned above, Nancy Kelly reprised her role from the Broadway pro­duc­tion.  Also ini­tial­ly con­sid­ered for the role of Rhoda’s moth­er were Rosalind Russell and Bette Davis.  However, the direc­tor, Mervyn LeRoy, want­ed to bring the cast from the play.  Another inter­est­ing note—Alfred Hitchcock turned down the oppor­tu­ni­ty to direct this film.  Billy Wilder had want­ed to direct the film but had dif­fi­cul­ties with the Production Code Administration (anoth­er cen­sor­ing orga­ni­za­tion) regard­ing the behav­iors depict­ed by the eight-year-old Rhoda.  He threw in the towel. 

The title of the film appar­ent­ly stems from a con­ver­sa­tion Christine has with a friend, Reggie Tasker (who is involved in research on the top­ic of “nature vs. nurture”):

Christine: “Do you real­ly mean to say that nice fam­i­ly sur­round­ings and advan­tages could make no dif­fer­ence at all?”

Reggie: “Yes. It’s as if these chil­dren were born blind per­ma­nent­ly and you just could­n’t expect to teach them to see.”

Christine: “Well, would you notice any brutish expres­sions on their faces?”

Reggie: “Sometimes. But more often they present a more con­vinc­ing pic­ture of virtue than nor­mal folk.”

Christine: “But that’s horrible!”

Reggie: “It’s just that they are bad seeds. Plain bad from the begin­ning. And noth­ing can change them.” 

Though the film was very pop­u­lar, some crit­ics took note of the “stagi­ness” of the act­ing. In watch­ing it there is a feel of a stage pro­duc­tion. However, we must keep in mind that it was pre­vi­ous­ly a stage pro­duc­tion and many of the actors were from that pro­duc­tion. Another thing to keep in mind is that three of these “stage actors” were nom­i­nat­ed for an Academy Award.

The Bad Seed also has an unusu­al end­ing with the screen cred­its.  As on the stage, where actors are brought before the audi­ence and intro­duced, the cred­its bring each actor before the cam­era as an announc­er pro­ceeds to intro­duce them.  When Nancy Kelly is intro­duced at the end of the cred­its, she walks into the liv­ing room where Patty McCormack is and motions her to lay on her lap as she pro­ceeds to laugh­ing­ly spank McCormack for her mis­deeds. The Los Angeles Times wrote in May 1956 that this seg­ment was added at the end to “remove some of the bad taste . . . led by this hor­rif­ic shock­er.” Warner Bros. also had an “adults only” warn­ing in the advertising—efforts to appease the cen­sors at the time.

There have been two remakes of the film. In 1985 a made-for-TV ver­sion starred Lynn Redgrave and David Carradine. A sec­ond remake was made for Lifetime TV in 2018 with Rob Lowe as direc­tor and star­ring in the film. This film also fea­tured Patty McCormack play­ing the role of a psychiatrist.

The Bad Seed was includ­ed in the list of films nom­i­nat­ed by the American Film Institute’s 2001 for the top 100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies. 

The Internet Movie Database rates the film at 7.4 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a crit­ics score of 63% and an audi­ence score of 82%.  Today The Bad Seed is often iden­ti­fied as a “cult film.” 

Checking my Roku I found the film avail­able to stream for free on Tubi.  Also, the Clark County Public Library has a copy of the DVD on the shelf. 

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.

I’ll be back soon with the next Reel Classic, but before I leave you with the trail­er below let me remind you that if you enjoy these clas­sic movies, please join me on the sec­ond Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. at the Clark County Public Library for “Ron Kibbey’s Comedy Classics.”  I present a clas­sic com­e­dy film usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by a vin­tage car­toon.  Popcorn and drinks are pro­vid­ed.  More infor­ma­tion about the next film is avail­able on the library’s web­site and Facebook page, as well as WinCity Voices Facebook page.