Rotten
This melodrama about a child with an inbred talent for homicide is pretty unpleasant stuff on its own.
Variety Staff, Variety
The Bad Seed
For little Rhoda, murder is child's play.
1956 · 2h 9m · APPROVED
Drama, Horror, Thriller
Directed by
Mervyn LeRoy
Overview
Air Force Colonel Kenneth Penmark and his wife, Christine, adore their daughter Rhoda, despite her secret tendency for selfishness. Christine keeps her knowledge of her daughter's darker side to herself, but when a schoolmate of Rhoda's dies mysteriously, her self-deception unravels.
Director and cast
- Mervyn LeRoy Director
- Patty McCormack as Rhoda Penmark
- Eileen Heckart as Hortense Daigle
- Henry Jones as Leroy Jessup
- Nancy Kelly as Christine Penmark
- 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
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
68%
Tomatometer
Rotten
Mervyn LeRoy, who produced and directed, has lost a great deal of the bite of the play.
Bosley Crowther, New York Times
Rotten
Overlong, stiff, and about as suspenseful as a detergent commercial.
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader
Rotten
Director LeRoy has been overly faithful to the play script.
TIME Magazine
Rotten
1956 was way too soon for an unfettered treatment of the central premise.
Time Out
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