Considered "shocking" in its day (largely on the basis of PR), "The Bad Seed" remains little more than an interesting relic today. Yes, I saw the film on its initial release (I was 12). Even then, it didn't work -- as a film. From all accounts, it DID work on Broadway as a play.<br /><br />Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones and Eileen Heckart reprise their stage roles here. Interesting that only Heckart understood the different requirements for film acting and stage acting. Her two brief scenes are the only honest (and heartbreaking) moments in the film.<br /><br />Even director Mervyn LeRoy apparently hadn't the professionalism to alter the others' stage (and stagy) performances that had been set in stone during the Broadway run.<br /><br />Nancy Kelly's odd, idiosyncratic sing-song line delivery is pathetically "attention getting." "Watch me act the hell out of this," she seems to whine in every scene. Banging the table repeatedly while Rhoda plays that infernal piano as smoke billows outside and the yardman screams is NOT acting. It's indicating. It's commenting. But then, Kelly's every on screen moment seems to be "commenting" on her character's plight, rather than inhabiting that character. As an archival record of her stage performance, its valuable in revealing a certain style of acting that, in the '50s, was already becoming rapidly outdated. Kelly never enjoyed much of a film career, or a stellar stage career, for that matter.<br /><br />McCormack is effective, for the most part, until her "big scene" where she reveals the truth of what happened at the picnic. Then, her limited acting skills are all too visible. She has two levels: phony sweetness and phony hysterics. Phony sweetness (when you know the kid is really a murderer) plays, for awhile. Phony hysterics in a child psychopath is the wrong choice (though it may have worked well on stage). Instead of jumping from "sweet" to "rage" without any transitional steps (always one sign of a poor actor), a "real" psychopath would have used the moment to launch into tearful "vulnerable" pleas for understanding. A far more effective and subtle choice -- both for an actor and a psychopath (all psychopaths are actors, after all).<br /><br />Henry Jones' portrayal veers too close to a baggy-pants vaudeville comedian to be remotely plausible. Jones was an excellent actor. But not here. "Ham" caricature wasn't needed: real sympathy was.<br /><br />Only Eileen Heckart delivers the goods. The clash between her performance (which is the real thing) and the rest of the cast is startlingly obvious -- even to a 12 year old audience member.<br /><br />"The Bad Seed" couldn't work today -- or even a few years after it was made. It was never a great play. It relied completely on the "shock" value of its theme. On Broadway, perhaps its most disturbing element was its ending -- yet that was jettisoned for the film version because of the "moral" dictates of the times.<br /><br />In the play, Mommy dies and Rhoda survives to kill another day. "What will you give me for a basket of kisses," Daddy asks. "I'll give you a basket of hugs!" Curtain.<br /><br />Not here. Instead, we are treated to a tacked-on ending where Rhoda (in a noisy thunderstorm in the middle of the night, no less), sneaks out of the house and onto the pier to retrieve -- what? That penmanship medal Mommy threw back in the lake? One forgets. It doesn't matter. The orchestra and sound effects department whip up a frenzy of a storm while little Patty McCormack is required to -- what? Walk? That's it? Then, BOOM! Deus ex machina. God takes care of the plot by obliterating the little actress, uh, Rhoda, with a bolt of lightning. Then the camera pans up into the trees.<br /><br />But wait! There's more! Cheapening an already cheap shot of a film even further, we must now sit through "curtain calls" of the actors as they appear, smiling, in the doorway of the Penmark's apartment. (Get the symbolism YET? "Penmark" and "penmanship medal?" It was that kind of play.) This bizarre sequence ends with Nancy Kelly mock-spanking Patty McCormack on the sofa.<br /><br />Presumably so the presumably terrified audience can presumably return to their normal lives after the presumed shocks of this presumed thriller.<br /><br />Even At 12, I knew I'd been ripped off. And the film looks worse with age. A deservedly ignored anachronism.