The Bad Seed (film)
Encyclopedia
The Bad Seed is a 1956 American horror-thriller
film directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy was an American film director, producer and sometime actor.-Early life:Born to Jewish parents in San Francisco, California, his family was financially ruined by the 1906 earthquake...

. It is based upon a play
The Bad Seed (play)
The Bad Seed was a successful and long-running Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson adapted from the novel of that name by William March, and was in turn adapted by John Lee Mahin into an Academy Award-nominated film of the same name directed by Mervyn Leroy. Staged by Reginald Denham, it opened...

 (of the same name) by Maxwell Anderson
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.-Early years:Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent...

, which in turn is based upon William March
William March
William March was an American author and a highly decorated US Marine. The author of six novels and four short-story collections, March was praised by critics and heralded as "the unrecognized genius of our time", without attaining popular appeal until after his death.March grew up in rural...

's 1954 novel The Bad Seed
The Bad Seed
The Bad Seed is a 1954 novel by William March, nominated for the 1966 National Book Award for Fiction. It was the last major work written by March, and, although published in his lifetime, its enormous critical and commercial success was largely realized after his death, one month after publication...

. The play was adapted by John Lee Mahin
John Lee Mahin
John Lee Mahin was a prolific screenwriter and producer. He was the son of John Lee Mahin, Sr. , a Chicago newspaper and advertising man, and Julia Graham Snitzler....

 for the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 of the film. It stars Nancy Kelly
Nancy Kelly
Nancy Kelly was an American actress, who was a movie leading lady in the 1930s, making 36 movies between 1926 and 1977, including portraying Tyrone Power's love interest in the classic Jesse James , which also featured Henry Fonda, and playing opposite Spencer Tracy in Stanley and Livingstone...

, Patty McCormack
Patty McCormack
Patty McCormack is an American actress with a career in theater, films and television.She achieved success as a child actress, and received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Bad Seed...

, Henry Jones
Henry Jones (actor)
Henry Burk Jones was an American actor of stage, film and television.Jones was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Helen and John Francis Xavier Jones. He was the grandson of Pennsylvania Representative Henry Burk...

, Eileen Heckart
Eileen Heckart
Eileen Heckart was an American actress of stage, screen, and television.-Early life:Heckart was born Anna Eileen Heckart in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Esther and Leo Herbert. She was legally adopted by her grandfather, J.W. Heckart. Her family was of Irish and German descent...

, Evelyn Varden
Evelyn Varden
Evelyn Varden was an American actress.Evelyn Varden had a long and distinguished career on Broadway despite starring in the ill-fated Return Engagement by Lawrence Riley...

, William Hopper
William Hopper
William Hopper, born DeWolf Hopper, Jr. was an American actor. He is best-remembered for playing Paul Drake on television's Perry Mason.-Early life:...

, Paul Fix
Paul Fix
Paul Fix was an American film and television character actor, best known for his work in westerns. Fix appeared in more than a hundred movies and dozens of television shows over a 56-year career spanning from 1925 to 1981...

, Joan Croydon and Jesse White
Jesse White (actor)
Jesse White was an American television, film, and stage character actor. He is best remembered for portraying the Maytag repairman in television commercials, a role he played from 1967 to 1988.-Life and career:...

.

The Bad Seed was nominated for four Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

 (Nancy Kelly), Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...

 (Eileen Heckart and Patty McCormack, separately) and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...

.

Characters and story

On her piano, Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack
Patty McCormack
Patty McCormack is an American actress with a career in theater, films and television.She achieved success as a child actress, and received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Bad Seed...

) plays the French song "Au clair de la lune", while her father (William Hopper
William Hopper
William Hopper, born DeWolf Hopper, Jr. was an American actor. He is best-remembered for playing Paul Drake on television's Perry Mason.-Early life:...

) says his goodbyes to her and his wife, Christine (Nancy Kelly
Nancy Kelly
Nancy Kelly was an American actress, who was a movie leading lady in the 1930s, making 36 movies between 1926 and 1977, including portraying Tyrone Power's love interest in the classic Jesse James , which also featured Henry Fonda, and playing opposite Spencer Tracy in Stanley and Livingstone...

), as he goes away on military duty. Their neighbor and landlord, Monica Breedlove (Evelyn Varden
Evelyn Varden
Evelyn Varden was an American actress.Evelyn Varden had a long and distinguished career on Broadway despite starring in the ill-fated Return Engagement by Lawrence Riley...

), comes in with a present for Rhoda (a locket). Rhoda, looking pristine and proper in her perfect dress and pigtails, thanks Monica for the gift. She then tap dances on the hard floor. Monica notices the tap shoes, and Rhoda says the shoes were her own idea. They then discuss a penmanship medal that Rhoda lost to her schoolmate, Claude Daigle, and how infuriating it was for her to lose. 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 it could be Rhoda, but a follow-up report indicates that it was Rhoda's schoolmate, Claude Daigle. Relieved that her daughter is alive, Christine worries that her daughter might be traumatized
Psychological trauma
Psychological trauma is a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a traumatic event...

 by seeing the boy’s corpse. When Rhoda returns, however, she is unfazed by the incident and goes about her daily duties.

Rhoda's teacher later visits Christine, revealing that Rhoda was the last person seen with Claude that day on the wharf and was seen grabbing at Claude's penmanship medal. The two women are visited by Mrs. Daigle (Eileen Heckart
Eileen Heckart
Eileen Heckart was an American actress of stage, screen, and television.-Early life:Heckart was born Anna Eileen Heckart in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Esther and Leo Herbert. She was legally adopted by her grandfather, J.W. Heckart. Her family was of Irish and German descent...

), who drunkenly accuses Rhoda of knowing something that she is telling no one.

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 winning a bet. Later, however, Christine catches Rhoda trying to dispose of her tap shoes and Christine figures out 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 reveals that she murdered a neighbor lady when they lived in Wichita
Wichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...

. Christine orders Rhoda to burn the shoes in the incinerator.

A subplot reveals that Christine was the natural daughter of a well-known serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

, Bessie Denker, and was adopted at two years of age by her current father. Christine then worries that Bessie is to blame for Rhoda's sociopathy
Antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial personality disorder is described by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition , as an Axis II personality disorder characterized by "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood...

, and that her bad behavior is genetic
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

, not influenced by parenting.

The next day, when Rhoda is playing in the garden, the janitor, LeRoy (Henry Jones
Henry Jones (actor)
Henry Burk Jones was an American actor of stage, film and television.Jones was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Helen and John Francis Xavier Jones. He was the grandson of Pennsylvania Representative Henry Burk...

), heckles her that she killed Claude with her shoes and that he took the burnt shoes as evidence. When Rhoda reacts in anger, LeRoy realizes his accusation, made in jest, is actually true. He searches the incinerator and finds what remains of the shoes. Christine and Rhoda go to dinner at Monica's house and Mrs. Daigle returns, drunk, demanding to speak with Rhoda. Outside, in a panic, Rhoda sets LeRoy afire to keep her secret concealed. Christine and Monica watch from the apartment as LeRoy is burned alive. That night, Christine tells Rhoda that she dropped the medal into the lake and gives her a lethal dose of sleeping pills. She attempts to kill herself with a gunshot to the head (in the book and play she does kill herself). Instead of killing them both, however, Rhoda and Christine survive in a hospital. In the middle of the night, during a storm, Rhoda sneaks out in a rain slicker and goes to the lake and out on the wharf to try to find the medal. Lightning strikes her, killing her instantly, unlike in the novel and play.
Following the end of the movie, the cast is introduced during a theatrical-style curtain call. After her credit is read, Nancy Kelly delivers a spanking to Patty McCormack. The spanking continues as the film fades out; a screen card then requests that the audience not divulge the ending.

Censorship

Although the novel and play had the mother dying and the evil child surviving, the Hays 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.

Remakes

The Bad Seed was remade for television in 1985, adapted by George Eckstein and directed by Paul Wendkos. It starred Blair Brown
Blair Brown
Bonnie Blair Brown is an American theater, film, and television actress. She has had a number of high profile roles, including a Tony Award-winning turn in the play Copenhagen on Broadway, as well as a run as the title character in the television comedy-drama The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,...

, Lynn Redgrave
Lynn Redgrave
Lynn Rachel Redgrave, OBE was an English actress.A member of the well-known British family of actors, Redgrave trained in London before making her theatrical debut in 1962...

, David Carradine
David Carradine
David Carradine was an American actor and martial artist, best known for his role as a warrior monk, Kwai Chang Caine, in the 1970s television series, Kung Fu, which later had a 1990s sequel series, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues...

, Carrie Welles, Richard Kiley, Chad Allen and Christa Denton. This version used the original ending as in the March novel.

Eli Roth
Eli Roth
Eli Raphael Roth is an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is known for his role as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds for which he won both a SAG Award and a BFCA Critic's Choice Award...

 was set to direct a new remake of the film, as stated by MovieWeb.com. Roth promised a new take with a modern horror sensibility. "The original was a great psychological thriller, and we are going to bastardize and exploit it, ramping up the body counts and killings," said Roth. "This is going to be scary, bloody fun, and we're going to create the next horror icon, a la Freddy, The Orphan, Jason and Chucky. She's this cunning, adorable kid who loves to kill, but also loves 'N Sync."

Popular culture

Miriam Linna
Miriam Linna
Miriam Linna has run the Brooklyn-based independent record label Norton Records since 1986 with her husband—the producer and singer-songwriter Billy Miller...

 used the title Bad Seed for her magazine about juvenile delinquent fiction. Linna featured covers from her collection of 500 juvenile delinquent novels in her book, Bad Seed: A Postcard Book (Running Press, 1992).

The band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian alternative rock band, formed in Melbourne in 1983. The band is fronted by Nick Cave and has featured international personnel throughout their career.-Formation and early releases :...

 is named after the novel, play and film.

The NCIS
NCIS (TV series)
NCIS, formerly known as NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service, is an American police procedural drama television series revolving around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducts criminal investigations involving the U.S...

episode "Child's Play" makes a reference to the movie when Tony asks someone if they had seen the movie.

An episode of ABC Family
ABC Family
ABC Family, stylized as abc family, is an American television network, owned by ABC Family Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company...

's Pretty Little Liars
Pretty Little Liars (TV series)
Pretty Little Liars is an American mystery-thriller teen drama television series created by Marlene King. Based on the popular series of novels written by Sara Shepard, the show premiered on June 8, 2010 on ABC Family...

is titled "The Badass Seed". The characters are performing the play The Bad Seed for their high school English class.

An episode of Tiny Toons, Rhoda Queen is a parody of the film's main character Rhoda Penmark.

An episode of Quantum Leap (TV Series) entitled "Trilogy (Part 1) – One Little Heart", features a Bad Seed plot when Sam leaps into a small Louisiana town as a sheriff named Clayton Fuller who's also the father of young Abigail Fuller, a girl accused by a local townswoman, Leta Aider, of killing her husband and daughter. In the series, Abigail and the missing Aider daughter quarreled over a necklace before the girl's disappearance.

At the beginning of an episode of the TV series Six Feet Under
Six Feet Under
Six Feet Under is an American drama television series created and produced by Alan Ball. It premiered on the premium cable network HBO in the United States on June 3, 2001 and ended on August 21, 2005, spanning five seasons and 63 episodes. The show was produced by Actual Size Films and The...

 entitled "Nobody Sleeps", we can see people watching a scene from "The Bad Seed" and making fun of it.

An episode of Southpark
SouthPark
SouthPark is a large neighborhood and edge city in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. Its name is derived from the upscale SouthPark Mall, which opened on February 12, 1970...

entitled "spookyfish" is in part a parody of this movie.
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