The Bad Seed (1956)
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 25
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 8
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 4/10
Critic Reviews: 5
Fresh: 0 | Rotten: 5
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 8,174
My Rating
Movie Info
Can evil be inherited? That's the question posed by Maxwell Anderson in his stage play The Bad Seed. This 1956 film adaptation stars many actors from the Broadway version, including Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones and Eileen Heckart. Young McCormack plays Rhoda, a too-good-to-be-true grade schooler who occasionally exhibits a vicious streak whenever things don't turn out her way. During a picnic, one of Rhoda's schoolmates is drowned; the victim is a boy who'd won a penmanship medal
Sep 12, 1956 Wide
Aug 10, 2004
WARNER BROTHERS PICTURES
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Cast
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Nancy Kelly
Mrs. Christine Penmark -
Patty McCormack
Rhoda Penmark -
Henry Jones
LeRoy Handyman, Radio V... -
Eileen Heckart
Mrs. Daigle -
Evelyn Varden
Monica Breedlove -
William Hopper
Col. Kenneth Penmark -
Paul Fix
Richard Bravo -
Jesse White
Emory -
Gage Clarke
Reginald Tasker -
Joan Croydon
Miss Fern -
Frank Cady
Mr. Daigle
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All Critics (25) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (19) | Rotten (9) | DVD (16)
Director LeRoy has been overly faithful to the play script.
Top CriticThis melodrama about a child with an inbred talent for homicide is pretty unpleasant stuff on its own.
Mervyn LeRoy, who produced and directed, has lost a great deal of the bite of the play.
1956 was way too soon for an unfettered treatment of the central premise.
Top CriticOverlong, stiff, and about as suspenseful as a detergent commercial.
A near perfect thriller...
The 'secret' villain is the missing father - or we should say, the mother for trying to child-rear by herself ... The bad seed is dead - but single parents, be warned.
The dark drama that launched a genre of evil-kid movies. [Blu-ray]
...the last few minutes of this movie are almost as criminal as any murderous act committed in the plot. (Blu-ray edition)
...it's hard now to see what all the fuss was about.
An erratic but compelling film that lingers long after the fade-out.
Excellent, chilling classic with McCormack as perfect demon child.
Scandalous, scary and popular, but extremely outdated , this well-acted melodrama was one of the first to deal with criminal conduct as biologically conditioned
A classic reason for getting your tubes tied.
Wrung to the point of unwatchable by meandering monologues and slow reveals.
...behind the blonde, pigtailed facade lurks a sinister and slippery sociopath.
Audience Reviews for The Bad Seed
Super Reviewer
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- Rhoda Penmark: What would you give me for a basket of kisses?
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- Rhoda Penmark: You better give me those shoes. They're mine! Give them back to me!
Discussion Forum
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Foreign Titles
- The Bad Seed (1956) (DE)
- The Bad Seed (1956) (UK)
An occasionally riveting movie from the 50's about a sunny, charming, sociopathic little girl and her mother's desperate attempts to protect her and hide her nature. The Bad Seed sometimes makes the mistake of focusing too much on the dull adults, but overall, it's a solid movie. Good acting all around, and unlike similar modern movies like Orphan, The Bad Seed gets better as it goes along instead of imploding into an absurd mess. It feels a lot like a play, which is natural due to its evolution from novel to stage-play to film.
I thought The Bad Seed was a sinister (and relatively timeless) gem of the 50's, and I'm sure it was quite controversial in its time. The ending was changed because of the Hays Code, in fact, and feels a bit like a cop-out as a result, but not to the extent of ruining what came before. Check it out if you're interested.