The bad seed

No basket of kisses for you, OP.

OP, dead by dawn. Beware of braids.

There was so much scenery-chewing going on in this film, I'm surprised no one died of plywood poisoning.

Wimp. You missed all the good parts where she murdered innocents and ultimately got her punishment in the end.

Rhoda rules!

And the awwwwwwkward curtain call at the end!

Well you will never know the ending because we were asked to "not divulge the unusual climax of this story. "

So true!!

OP, read the novel instead -- it's excellent and creepy, with a terrifying ending. Not only is the movie full of over-acting, the ending was changed to see justice done, which is nowhere near as satisfying as the novel's horror.

Yeah, my step-mother asked me to watch it with her this afternoon. I saw it once before, but didn't remember anything about it, except that I hadn't liked it. Boy, was I right in that - what a stupid, long-winded, bore of a movie! I finally bailed after the mother shot herself, I just couldn't take any more. It should have been cut by an hour.

No thanks it’s too antiquated bad as in “not good”.

Excelsior!

R10- They did the same thing to the ending of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)

The only way I’m gonna watch this shit is if I’m tied, naked, to an ant hill dipped in honey.

R15- For me that would apply to the FRIENDS reunion show.

R14, it was the reverse with "Body Snatchers". The novel had a "happy" ending, but the movies (1956 and 1978, I haven't seen the later ones) didn't.

"Oh that poor Dago boy!"

[quote] The only way I’m gonna watch this shit is if I’m tied, naked, to an ant hill dipped in honey.

You are one kinky, freaky mo-fo.

OP, there’s a nice bed of excelsior in the basement. Why don’t you go take a little nap on it?

I loved this movie, I saw it as a teen in like ‘86 & was transfixed. I wished I could’ve gone back in time & lived in that era.

[quote]And the awwwwwwkward curtain call at the end!

Yeah, that was stupid and ruined a great ending.

Maybe you should watch the Blair Brown remake instead, OP.

I watched this movie (again) last night; Hortense Daigle needed her own spin off movie, where she careens around town in a drunken state, insulting everyone, particularly clueless Col Penmark. Monica was so annoying, I was kind of sorry the movie ended before Rhoda could push her off the roof.

OP=Bessie Denker

People afraid of that little blonde girl? In the 1950s it was still legal to beat her into tomorrow if she messed up her tap-dance routine.

I just watched the 2018 Lifetime remake starring Rob Lowe. Patty McCormack makes a special guest appearance as a psychiatrist who tells Emma (they renamed the characters) that she reminded her of herself when she was a little girl. lol

I didn't realize there was a book. Did my girl Rhoda get away with it all in the book?

Yes, R28. She gets away with everything in both the book and the play.

[quote] "Oh that poor Dago boy!"

Daigle

Actually the original ending - the mother dies & Rhoda lives is a better ending; even the dopey Colonel is going to want to some explanation as to why you poisoned the kid & shot yourself in the head and that's bound to be a tough one to explain

"Give ME those SHOES!!!!"

Sam Drucker plays Mrs. Daigle's husband in a brilliant stroke of casting.

HE AIN'T NO SPRING CHICKEN, R33!

It's the over-the-top camp that makes the film worth a watch. It's SHITASTIC!

Nancy Kelly overacts so much she makes Joan Crawford look like a model of subtlety.

And McCormack is so damn obviously fake-nice as Rhoda that everyone around her looks like a complete dolt for not catching on immediately.

Give back your gay card OP - The Bad Seed is one of my favorite camp classics. Showgirls - level dialogue and overacting. The anti-child theme is DL catnip. Especially for the time, it was fabulous for destroying the myth of the joy of children. From the anti-Natalist message, the campy, evil pigtailed girl to the cheesy end where the girl just goes “poof” with a blot of lighting - it needs to be watched from a c amp perspective. I never miss the opportunity when it comes on.

Christine's doorbell rings *constantly* (never mind Leroy just barging in) during that movie. That along with the annoying neighbor would be enough to make you want to blow your brains out

It's a classic! I loved this movie as a young gayling. No method acting here - they're selling it to the folks sitting in the back row of the balcony. They changed little of the stage play in adapting it for the screen.

Every phrase the little girl utters is like a drag Queen line.

The DVD has a wonderful commentary track in which Charles Busch and Patty McCormack chat delightfully. He's the perfect person to jog her memory about this and that.

I love this movie! It's the ultimate camp fest. It's so over-the-top bad that it's great - especially Miss Nancy Kelly, old enough to be Rhoda's grandmother.

I thought the female schoolteacher had some of the worst lines. I can't remember them, but I thought the writing was really atrocious, as was her acting.

Can I trade my basket of deplorables for a basket of kisses?

And William (Paul Drake!) Hopper as the father!

44 posts and nobody mentions scene-stealing Henry Jones?

Didn't this movie get nominated for an Oscar for something?

I think Henry Jones' Leroy's interactions with Rhoda are the best and most disturbing part of the movie. Yes, he's the only one 'on to her', but also why is he so into her?

I saw this for the first time when I was 12 y/o. I was mesmerized. It was the first child serial killer movie. Leroy's death was horrifying to me! His screams as he burned to death, Rhoda banging away loudly on that piano, the mother screaming! I did not sleep well that night, lol. Since then I watch that movie every time it comes on TV. Camp heaven!

[quote]I finally bailed after the mother shot herself

Wow you saved yourself about 10 minutes of a 2 hour 10 minute movie.

Right - the burning alive of Leroy was oddly horrific for a 50s movie. More gruesome than the usual horror movie.

[quote]Wow you saved yourself about 10 minutes of a 2 hour 10 minute movie.

Yeah, I know, but I literally couldn't take one more minute of it. I thought for sure it was going to end there and it was about the fifth time I thought that it was going to end.

So, were there no understudies or what? Eileen left during the run because she could only do that part for so long. She was replaced by Pert Kelton.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf discussion with Nancy Kelly...

And remember that Rhoda's mom tells Leroy very pointedly that he's never to talk to Rhoda, suggesting she was on to him.

You didn’t even laugh when Nancy Kelly dramatically swiveled around and screamed DENKERRRRRRRRRR???!!!!!!! She nearly gave herself a hemorrhoid in that scene!

R54- Lol 😆! It's true! The most unbelievable part was her husband getting that first call from her. How unrealistic was that? He doesn't ask why, wtf honey? Your wife, for absolutely no known reason, shoots herself in the head and poisons your child and that man didn't even ask why? Sure. So realistic. LoL.

Nancy Kelly was only 35 when she made the movie. Raising a demon child ages you.

Kelly won a Tony Award for her performance in the stage play. She, Patty McCormack and Eileen Heckart were all nominated for Oscars. Kelly lost to Ingrid Bergman in Anastasia, while McCormack and Heckart lost to Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind. Heckie was robbed.

In the book LeRoy was a pedo.

R56- She really was robbed. I am going to Google her and find out what happened to her and her career.

I just saw Patty McCormack in an old Love Boat episode. She was hardly recognisable from playing Rhoda as a kid. No longer a bleached blonde and quite a babe wearing a bikini.

here's a nice pic of adult Patty.

The Millennials are over this thread. Anything before 1980 doesn't exist.

Nancy Kelly is a member of the Deborah Kerr School Of Acting. Catch in the throat bordering on tears.

Nancy Kelly was a dirty [italic]Republican’t.[/italic]

I want this thread CLOSED.

[quote] The Millennials are over this thread. Anything before 1980 doesn't exist.

What does that have to do with anything? Or are you the OP feeding your own thread?

I love that the "happy ending" forced by the censors is a 12 year old girl being incinerated by lightning.

MISS FERN DYES HER HAIR!!

What R40 said.

I saw this as a kid and was mesmerized. Not long after, I was watching The Ropers and my mom said, “You know that wife is The Bad Seed, right?” Mind blown.

[quote] I am going to Google her and find out what happened to her and her career.

Heckart's son, Luke Yankee, wrote a very good biography of his mom, "Just Outside the Spotlight." It's worth reading. One of my favorite images is Ms. Heckart finishing a performance on Broadway at night and then riding the New Haven Railroad back home to Connecticut. Just another working actor.

Before Patty Duke played Helen Keller on Broadway and in the film, Patty McCormack played the role in THE MIRACLE WORKER on television.

That Teresa Wright/"Patricia" McCormack Miracle Worker used to be on youtube but it appears to be gone now.

^^^^

Anna Duke’s managers changed her name to Patty Duke in order to associate her with Patty McCormack, who already had success as a child performer at the time.

Poor Patty. It's either lightning or...BUG!

She would be such a good character to do on The Snatch Game. Retro enough that Ru would love it, enough things to quote, and as the game went on, you could have blood on you, body parts, ect.

The drag queens who did this to "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" should take on that "Bad Seed" campfest next!

I love this movie! I find it oddly comforting and I listen to the audio to help me fall asleep sometimes. The OTT-ness is due to it being modeled after the Broadway play so I’m good with it.

R46, I played 'Leroy' in a production of the play and gave him a 'pedo' twist. People thought he was even more creepier.

The Blair Brown TV movie somehow eradicated every moment of entertainment and drama in the script.

r76 They already have done Hush Up, Sweet Charlotte and their next project is Dead, Dead, Dead Ringer.

Mathew Martin is sensational in Bette Davis roles.

R80 Matthew Martin was hilarious as Jane; his blinking at literally every word she said had me dying! He looks familiar, did he play Helen Lawson in that Castro "Valley of the Dolls" video that was on YouTube a while ago?

From r80's link:

[quote] Adding to the movie's underground film street cred is John Waters alum Mink Stole as the white-trash housekeeper Velma

SOLD!

YES, r82!

Who else has seen the musical?

Also from a production of the musical.

"Ruthless" is a better musical based on The Bad Seed and Mommie Dearest with a little of Shirley Temple thrown in.

I was going to post that Ruthless is a mashup of The Bad Seed and Gypsy with some All About Eve thrown in. Regardless, it's mean, nasty and wonderful.

There's also Charles Busch's The Lady in Question, an off-Broadway mashup of The Mortal Storm and The Bad Seed. The Mortal Storm is the one where James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan try to escape the Nazis over a mountain on skis but she gets shot by a Nazi sniper and dies in his arms. Andy Halliday was wonderful as a little Nazi Rhoda,

I loved The Lady in Question, r88.

Love this movie! I saw it as a kid on TV and many times since.

I recommend it to all my nieces and nephews (when they are older).

One of a kind with all kinds of easily quotable lines and a rock-em-sock-em ending for the little braided one.

Once seen, never forgotten. So, when you quote a line, everybody recognizes it.

So over the top to be both hilarious and scary with Leroy's death as a humdinger.

Patty McCormick's secondary track discussion is great.

You guys who didn't get it - you're no fun at all.

I never in all my life thought I'd see DataLoungers dissing an Eileen Heckart movie.

Eileen won the Oscar for Butterflies are Free and shouldn't have. Goldie was way better but it probably wasn't a supporting role.

Eileen will always be remembered by DLers as Mary's Aunt Flo. (And did the writers really think that a visit from "Aunt Flo" was something to look forward to?)

She gave a lovely performance in The Waverly Gallery and she was very ill at that time.

Rhoda is not 12, R65.

She is 8 years old.

Wee-ooo wee-ooo wee-ooo!

I'm a huge fan of the film. I was inspired by this thread to download the book and I scarfed it up in one day. The Monica in the book is much better. Discussing penis envy, incest and homosexuality (positively) at her dinner party. A good beach read.

[quote]Discussing penis envy, incest and homosexuality (positively) at her dinner party.

Oh my, that was simply not done in the 1950s, NOT DONE. That book must have been considered scandalous and macabre in its day.

I love all of you glorious bitches! What a great thread! 😽

ASSASSINS

Playbill

Thanks everyone. I have so many great shows to check out now! I would not have known about them if you hadn't posted them here.

I wonder if Claude was gay. I mean, he did have good penmanship, isn’t that what little gay boys are known for?

from Dell...

[quote]I wonder if Claude was gay.

Well, he did say he was going to marry his momma when he grew up because she was the PRETTIEST!!

[quote] I think Henry Jones' Leroy's interactions with Rhoda are the best and most disturbing part of the movie. Yes, he's the only one 'on to her', but also why is he so into her?

Leroy was a pedophile, Rose.

[quote] I wonder if Claude was gay. I mean, he did have good penmanship, isn’t that what little gay boys are known for?

That, and hand jobs. Just ask Leroy.

[quote] Oh my, that was simply not done in the 1950s, NOT DONE. That book must have been considered scandalous and macabre in its day.

Not at all.

I've read Peyton Place, Grace. Yes, you do incest but penis envy and sexual perversion? You didn't go there.

I have a soft spot for the VERY low-budget "Mommy," which starred Patty McCormack as a grown-up Rhoda (though the character is never named) who goes Serial Mom on anyone who messes with her own young daughter Jessica-Ann (including Jessica-Ann's teacher, played by Majel Barrett).

And it had a tagline worthy of William Castle:

"NEVER let her TUCK YOU IN!"

Although McCormack didn't retain the star status she had as a child, she has had a long and and successful career that most actors would kill for. 156 credits at IMDB through 2020..

R98 Yes it was done in the '50s among intellectuals and the beat generation.

[quote]Although McCormack didn't retain the star status she had as a child, she has had a long and and successful career that most actors would kill for.

Including Adriana's mother on The Sopranos! I wish they'd given her more to do.

Was that a rehearsal recording, r84? Either that or the audience did not get the references

[quote][R98] Yes it was done in the '50s among intellectuals and the beat generation.

Those people were PERVERTS, r112. They would not have been received in any decent household in Charleston or Savannah.

Am I the only one who loves the 80s remake?

Were you even around in the '50s R115

You mean preverts, R115.

I want to see the remake "The Bad Weed" about the little girl whose psychosis is activated when she gets into her parents stash which has been contaminated with PCP and Fentanyl .

Indeed I was, r117. I am proudly an eldergay. I have survived. I'm still here.

I Ishmael they’d show Patty’s movie “Cathy O”. One of those I remember seeing as a kid that just disappeared.

It's Kathy O...

Surely you remember the immortal 1990 San Francisco production?

Um….yeah, OP.

I should have played the mother in this. I can really relate to her.

Holy shit, r122, how have I never heard of that?! Rhoda Penmark vs Betty Ramsey? The lead character named "Harry Johnson"? This should be an official Datalounge Hollywood classic!

Shit, I’ve never heard of Kathy O., either. And with Ruth Martin!!

I posted this in the Liberace thread...

[quote]Rhoda Penmark vs Betty Ramsey?

I have sufficient.

Besides the fact that gay men didn't often have children in my youth, Rhoda Penmark kept me from ever pursuing fatherhood.

I saw KATHY O once, and I've described it to tons of friends, who assume I am confusing the BAD SEED and BABY JANE into a non-existent film. I have got to see it again!

I remember seeing it once on TV as a kid. Well...I remember that I watched it, but that's about it. It really doesn't seem to ever get aired. Thank you Youtube...I think.

"I was watching The Ropers and my mom said, “You know that wife is The Bad Seed, right?”

This. Never. Happened.

Patty McCormack played Jeffrey Tambor's wife on The Ropers.

R134, it was completely impossible to believe that McCormack was married to Tambor. Not just because they were so ridiculously mismatched physically, but she was refined and it was in total contrast to Tambor's prickishness.

R133, why is that so hard to believe? I’m the one who posted that. My mom was always pointing out stuff like that, especially when I was watching soaps, “Palmer Cortlandt was Curly in ‘Oklahoma’.”...etc, etc.

Weird that you would think that’s something that anyone would bother to make up.

Palmer & Cyd

I’m watching this Kathy O thing right now on the you tube.

r136 He thought you were referring to Mrs. Roper as "the wife."

Kathy O used to be shown on TV around Christmas when I was growing up in Chicago in the 60s.

Well, it just doesn't get its due when you're discussing Mary Jane Croft's oeuvre.

I wonder if Jackie O was named for Kathy O.

Who doesn't love Miss Jan Sterling?

Make that Academy Award nominee Miss Jan Sterling.

[quote]Well, it just doesn't get its due when you're discussing Mary Jane Croft's oeuvre.

"Mary Jane Croft's oeuvre" also doesn't get its due in general.

Forgot that former child actor Ron Howard hired former child actress Patty to play Pat Nixon in "Frost/Nixon".

Patty with Georgia Engel on "Fantasy Island"

[quote]Well, it just doesn't get its due when you're discussing Mary Jane Croft's oeuvre.

Mary Jane's oeuvre stank.

I can't decide if OP is a Twit or a Twat.

One of my all time favorite movies. If you don't get it, you're an idiot.

It's one of those movies that is so bad..it's good. Campy fun.

On again now!

R152, looking at that movie now, it's almost impossible to believe that so many people actually took it seriously, rather than as a ridiculous camp-fest, back in the day. But they did.

I am an idiot and a cunt.

Mink Stole obviously drew from this for her bravura performance as Taffy Davenport.

Maybe 'The Bad Seed' trope has been used so much that it's hard to be shocked by this movie anymore. I saw it when I was a kid and found it very disturbing. One of the things I've notice, when re-watching this movie and Psycho recently, is that they spend a little too much time explaining the psychology of the villains. It might have been because of the Hays Code.

It is a classic for a reason. That little bitch is crazy. You should watch it for her performance alone.

It will make you never want to have kids and cause you to have sympathy for people who have them.

STFU, AUNT MONICA, YA NOSY OLD CUNT!

Aunt Monica lucked out big time.

R63 Well then no wonder her daughter was a murderer. All republicans are potential murderers.

The remake sucked donkey dick R23.

In the book, Rhoda lives and Aunt Monica is next on her list.

Leroy was horrible but so was Aunt Monica so maybe Rhoda wasn't all bad.

I saw it at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, with Patty McCormack as the guest speaker following the screening. She was lovely and funny. I have seen so many movies there with the stars as speakers: Olivia Hussey, Kim Novak, Gene Wilder, Elvira, and lots more. These evenings are so much fun because you are seeing the film with a huge audience of like-minded gay men who really get all the funny bits, and then an educational evening which follows.

By the way, the Castro has been sold, and will supposedly become more of a live event venue, but I am still concerned. It is a treasure. It will still be screening films for the SFFilm festival (oldest Film Festival in the U.S.)

Rob Lowe starred in yet another TV remake of The Bad Seed in 2018, although no one seems to remember it.

Lowe played the widowed father of the demon child, Emma Grossman, and Patty McCormack made a special appearance as the girl's psychiatrist.

It was a ratings success for Lifetime, and a sequel is due this year.

Eileen Heckart was on an early season of Alice, the DL fave sitcom. She played Alice's totally condescending, rude mother-in-law. Remember? Hilarious!

Eileen is an EGOT, and not on the list of the other 5 like Babs and Liza with one honorary. For shame!

I'm afraid that Eileen Heckart's only Tony was an honorary one for lifetime achievement. Unbelievably, she never won a competitive Tony although she was nominated many times.

What was her Grammy for?

Her Grammy was for her 1978 disco album.

RHHOOOOOO-dddaaaaaHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!?????!?

We don't have Bad Seed children any more, since they invented ADHD.

Rhoda was a little cunt.

You missed the. best part at the end ⚡️

Bitch! Turn in your gay card. This is a gay classic! Every homosexual wishes they could kill the people they don't like and do it with such style!

You are the kinda bitch who would probably fuck one of those ugly men in the film. Bill Hopper (Mr. Pennmark) is the only one with potential. These are some of the ugliest men I've ever seen.

Then Don't watch The Good Son! It's the male version.

Exactly what do you mean?