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   The Bad Seed (1956 film)   
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   The Bad Seed   
   TheBadSeed1956.jpg   
   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 Brothers   
   Release date(s)	   
   September 12, 1956   
   Running time	129 minutes   
   Country	United States   
   Language	English   
   Box office	$4.1 million (US)[1]   
   The Bad Seed is a 1956 American horror-thriller film directed by Mervyn LeRoy   
   and starring Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones, and Eileen Heckart   
      
   The film is based upon a 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.   
      
   Contents   
      
   1 Plot   
   2 Cast   
   3 Censorship   
   4 Reception   
   4.1 Academy Awards   
   5 Remakes   
   6 Popular culture   
   7 References   
   8 External links   
   Plot   
      
   On her piano, 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 dress and pigtails,   
   thanks Monica for the gift. She then tap dances on the hard floor. Monica   
   notices the tap shoes, and    
   Rhoda says that adding the taps to the shoes was her own idea. They then   
   discuss a penmanship medal 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 Daigle. 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, and 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   
   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 old lady 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 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 janitor, 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. Christine and Rhoda go to dinner at Monica's and Mrs. Daigle   
   returns, drunk, demanding to speak with Rhoda. Outside, off camera, Rhoda sets   
   LeRoy's bedding ablaze to    
   keep her secret safe. From the apartment window, Christine and Monica watch   
   him burn (the viewer only hears LeRoy's screams). 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're her new vitamins. Then she attempts to kill herself with a gunshot to   
   the head (in the book and play, she succeeds). Instead of being killed,   
   however, Rhoda and Christine are found and taken to a hospital and both   
   survive. 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.   
      
   At the end of the story, 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.   
      
   Cast   
      
   Nancy Kelly as Christine Penmark   
   Patty McCormack as Rhoda Penmark   
   Henry Jones as Leroy Jessup   
   Eileen Heckart as Hortense Daigle   
   Evelyn Varden as Monica Breedlove   
   William Hopper as Col. Kenneth Penmark   
   Paul Fix as Richard Bravo   
   Jesse White as Emory Wages   
   Gage Clarke as Reginald 'Reggie' Tasker   
   Joan Croydon as Claudia Fern (as Joan Croyden)   
   Frank Cady as Henry Daigle   
   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.   
      
   In another move to appease the censors, Warner Bros. added an "adults only"   
   tag to the film's advertising.[2]   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)