The Bad Seed (1956) on Netflix
Approved19562h 9mDramaHorrorThriller
Christine Penmark dotes on her eight-year-old daughter Rhoda, who wants the penmanship medal a classmate won. When the boy drowns and the medal goes missing, Rhoda shows no grief.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.4/1017,971 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes64%
Trailer
Plot summary
Christine Penmark and her husband Kenneth, an Air Force colonel, share a comfortable apartment with their eight-year-old daughter Rhoda. Kenneth leaves for an assignment in Washington. Their landlady, Monica Breedlove, gives Rhoda presents that the girl does not seem satisfied with, the handyman Leroy spars with the child, and Rhoda protests loudly that she should have won first place in a school penmanship contest instead of her classmate Claude Daigle. At the school picnic, Christine asks the headmistress, Claudia Fern, how Rhoda is getting on; Miss Fern praises the child, then becomes evasive and excuses herself. A radio bulletin reports that Claude has drowned off a rickety pier the pupils had been forbidden to use. Rhoda comes home early, shows no shock, and goes out roller-skating.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Bad Seed (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
The novel and play end with Christine dying and Rhoda surviving, but the Motion Picture Production Code did not permit perpetrators of crime to go unpunished, so the film reverses the deaths: Christine's life is saved and Rhoda is killed by a bolt of lightning.- Geoffrey Shurlock of the Production Code Administration told Jack Warner the property 'violated the spirit and letter of the Code' and his office cautioned Paramount, Columbia and Universal against it, yet after a bidding war Warner bought the film rights for $300,000.
- To appease the censors Warner Bros. added an 'adults only' warning to the advertising and softened the shocking ending with a segment in which an announcer introduces the cast, closing with Kelly lightheartedly spanking McCormack for her character's misdeeds.
