Anyone else see The Bad Seed on TCM yesterday? I’d not seen it in years and had forgotten how chilling Patty McCormack and Nancy Kelly were. The only misstep was that asinine ending they tacked on—I assume the B’way show ended with Rhoda’s Mom giving her the sleeping pills, and then going offstage to shoot herself, à la Ibsen?
Someone at work and I were discussing how and if it could be remade, and decided that little Emily from Showbiz Moms & Dads would make a perfect Rhoda. They could even move the plot from the whole “penmanship medal” to, “But Mommy, that tiara was mine—I should have won it!!”
It’s been on Cinemax a few times over the last couple of months, so I watched and and really rooted for Rhoda to get away with her murder spree. I particularly enjoyed one of my favorite characters, Henry Jones, as the mentally handicapped handyman–nobody could convey dimwitted malwevolence like him.
IIRC from a novelization I read years ago, the original version probably ends in the hospital with the mother dead, but everyone relieved that the sound of the shot drew attention and they arrived in time to save Rhoda, who is going to be fine.
I watched this yesterday too, and enjoyed the sticky-sweet evil of little Rhoda, but the mother rather annoyed me; she seemed on the edge of hysteria even before anything bad happened!
One (or two) of my favorite scenes: Rhoda and the handyman talking about the “stick bloodhounds.”
I thought the “you’re really the daughter of a psycho killer” subplot could have been dropped, too—it’s enough that Rhoda is a psycho; the whole heredity red herring was a bit over the top and unecessary.
Still, great plot: what do you do when you discover your beloved little child is a sociopathic serial killer? And I still think casting directors should haunt the Baby Beauty Pageants when looking for a “Rhoda.”
I love that movie. I saw it when I was a little girl and it gave me nightmares, and I still feel a bit icky when I see it today. I also was impressed by Henry Jones as the handyman; he and Rhoda were well-matched in malevolence and I liked their scenes together.
It has already been remade, however - The Good Son, starring Macauley Culkin and Elijah Wood, with MC as the junior psychopath. Without spoiling it, it doesn’t have such a happy tacked-on ending, which is a definite improvement.
Wasn’t the original movie based on a true-life child murderer in England? I’ll have to go to crimelibrary.com after this to check on that.
You forgot the 1985 tv remake, with Carrie Wilson as the Bad Seed? (Well, I forgot all the details but I did remember that there was a remake - which had Blair Brown as the mother, David Carradine as the father, and Lynn Redgrave as Monica Breedlove.)
In the original, I really love Henry Jones as “Leroy” and Eileen Heckart as “Hortense Daigle.”
It’s not a red herring. That’s why the movie’s called “The Bad Seed”. Rhoda has been contaminated by her father’s criminally insane genes, making her criminally insane. It was the 50’s. Genetics was destiny.
It would have to be dropped if it were remade today. An audience would find it unintentionally funny, like, "I’ve just booked passage . . . on the Titanic!!"
I see Patty McCormack still has a respectible acting career (though she did two unfortunate Bad Seed rip-offs, Mommy and Mommy II, about ten years ago).
<Ominous music plays>Well, yeah, it would. But now that I’m thinking, there are a few movies that go into the whole nature-nurture debate. “Bedtime for Bonzo”, made only a few years before, comes down on the other side, even though that plot is more intentionally ludicrous.
I liked this movie. But instead of a remake of this movie, they ought to do an adaptation of the novel Nursery Crimes by B.M. Gill since it’s even more chilling and twisted, which modern audiences would like
I rented it along with Village of the Damned to show a few of my friends (who were the same age as me) who’d never seen either of them. It had been quite a few years since I’d watch them too.
We watched Village first because I remember being scared shitless of it when I was around 10 and it was great popcorn entertainment. But The Bad Seed held us all silent. No popcorn munching or MST2K type commentary like with Village.
Loved the movie. “Hortense ain’t got no sense, let’s write her name on the privy fence.”
Torie, I don’t think the movie was based on the Mary Bell murders. The site you linked to said the murders took place in 1968, and the movie was made in the fifties, if I am remembering correctly.
However, the case does sound chillingly familiar to an episode of Law & Order that revolved around an eleven-year-old girl murderer and her thirteen-year-old accomplice who kill a younger boy and hide him in a construction site.
As for the movie, how do you spell Christine’s real name? Ingo Dankhersh is how I think it’s pronounced, I never did hear it clearly. And the details of how Christine came to live with her adopted parents are a little fuzzy, too.
