It was a hard film to watch. A light-hearted curtain call relieved breath-taking tension by reminding the viewers that the child was a real child, OK, and an excellent actress,
@@jubalcalif9100 It also served to lessen any idiotic perceptions that the real Patty McCormack was truly an evil child, a bad seed. It reminded the audience that the young actress was a regular kid who enjoyed having some playful fun. The smiles and laughter were a good move. Nowadays, there would be a humorless, overwrought outcry that a 'portrayal of child abuse' was terrible and unacceptable -- demanding the resignations of all involved. The murders in the story would remain in the film, but the lighthearted spanking bit would be piously censored out.
Indubitably ! Cute scene ! Nancy tries to get a straight face but just can't. And Patty smiles broadly as Nancy turns her over her knee. The smacks look firm but Patty probably didn't feel much under her dress, slip, panties, etc. Who knows...she may have worn a couple of pairs of panties as further protection against the sting !
I like how they did this to lighten the mood after the movie. I wish they did this for more films today, I bet people would not feel to depressed after movies.
At the very very end of "2001 A Space Odyssey" HAL is seen smoking a cigarette while joking around with the Star Child. At the very very end of "Planet of the Apes" Charlton Heston and Zira are naked on the beach making the sweet love.
I saw the movie in Italy around twenty years after the making. I was 12 y.o. then. A great movie. The meaniest most psycopathic little angel of the whole cinema history!!
They should have done this for Little Shop Of Horrors. The reason they changed the ending was because there was no curtain call and it felt like the main characters really were dead and the ending was Audrey II takes over the world. They made it a happy ending, but with the curtain call, you see the actors are just fine. I mean, I know most of the characters in the play had questionable morals, but even then, no one can condone the part where the plant attacked Audrey.
@@strawberrysoulforever8336 I liked Roger Corman's original Little Shop way better than the musical. It was unapologetically a dark comedy without the veneer of cuteness. And no fake happy ending.
@@dontaylor7315 The stage musical too, when the ending made it through? The happy ending was exclusive to the movie and the original ending was restored (although admittedly Don't Feed The Plants is much better on stage).
@@strawberrysoulforever8336 I can't venture an opinion on the stage musical, I haven't seen a production of it. If it ends with the line "I didn't mean it!" like Corman's version that would be a definite plus.
away from murder three times. I love the movie anyway. The director, the producers, and the actors, actressess, and anybody else did a nice job on making this movie come true. I love it.
I got the sense that, in this scene, the actors weren't in character and that it was an attempt to give a lighthearted ending to a serious film. If they had done this in the movie, Rhoda probably would have put her mother on the next "to be killed" list.
You're right, they're not in character. Rhoda's already dead by lightning and Christine's in the hospital after shooting herself in the head. The scene at the end of the curtain calls is a joke and both actresses are laughing.
Oh, I'd have APPLAUDED the spanking scene if I'd been watching the original release. But I agree, it's a just a fun thing between the actresses -- watch carefully and you see them both laugh.
Yes, I noticed Patty (Rhoda) was smiling. I actually was introduced to this movie by Jacqueline Wilson's autobiographical work "Jacky Daydream", so I never think of the girl as Rhoda, I think of her as Patty McCormack because that's how Jacqueline remembers her. She was too young to see the movie (only nine when it came out), but she saw the photos, and thought Patty was really beautiful and insisted her parents tell her the story after they saw it. Later on, she wrote about it as part of a "Family Day Out" composition, claiming they went to it (she made up the whole thing because days out with her family didn't go too well). Her mother was furious when Jacqueline told her and told her she had to tell her teacher the very next day that it wasn't true (I think she was worried about getting flak for taking her daughter to the movie). The teacher hadn't believed that part anyway, and he was lovely when she confessed, saying she was a storyteller with a vivid imagination, not a liar (he was her favourite primary school teacher - he even wrote to her after the book was published!).
🤨It's the actress Patty McCormack being herself now, not Rhoda and she was introduced as herself by the announcer. Yes, I could see the two actresses (no longer the characters) being funny and "all in good fun", I highly doubt Patty McCormack "had it coming" if she played the role that was asked of her.
I know of an earlier serious film that ended with an even more lighthearted curtain call, Orson Welles Citizen Kane. After two hours of heavy intense drama and the last scene where "Rosebud" is the name of a sled that he owned as a boy, being incinerated, and a THE END with a dramatic underscore, a curtain call follows with head shots of the actors and a cheery closing theme that you would expect more from a light comedy plays during the end credits.
As I do when I take off my hat, you make a good point. Yes, the music from Bernard Herrmann is indeed lighthearted during the cast call at the end of "Citizen Kane".
Fun to see ending from a 1950s movie. It is SO unusual for a movie to have a curtain call scene like this one instead of text of credits scrolling up or appearing still on the screen. The ending scene of the 1970 film M*A*S*H takes a similar approach such that the announcer mentions each actor's name with a scene centered on the character that actor played. I think that certain movies like The Wizard of Oz, Matilda, and The Angry Birds Movie should have had a curtain call scene instead of credits appearing as text on the screen. If I'm a director, writer, and actor, as I had planned, my movies will have a curtain call scene in the end.
This young actresses range was quite exquisite. I don’t think she got the flowers she deserved. patty McCormicks Rhoda is what Heath ledger was to the joker she played this character seamlessly
Don't be so narrow minded as to believe there is only one possible interpretation of a scene in a film. You sound like some sort of Fundamentalist. Intelligent people can look at things on several different levels which the ignorant dislike because they that find too complex.
@@Texasjim2007 "...A scene in a film?" Not really; it feels more like a scene AFTER the movie. And both actresses appear to be having too much fun for it to have much relevance to the film itself. Anyway why get so judgemental when someone fails to see it your way?
@@dontaylor7315 Being able to see more than one point of view is the opposite of being judgmental. Being judgmental is making a choice between an innocent and guilty verdict in a trial. Being non-judgmental is being able to listen to both sides in a trial without assuming the person is innocent or guilty until you hear all the evidence.
@@Texasjim2007 True as far as it goes but the definition of "non-judgemental" doesn't extend to making a choice and then venting invective at the person who makes a different choice.
It certainly would have taken more than a spanking to rehabilitate a child who was born evil, which was the point of the story. However, I do like this ending because it reminded us that this was just a movie.
I saw this movie for the first time more than 20 years ago. Today I watched it again and realized the ending is not at all how I remembered it and now I wonder which movie am I mixing this one with. The ending I remember was the mom following Rhoda when she’s going to the lake and she drowns her daughter
Well given the fact that we see her die and this is a spanking after her and her victims have all been raised from dead I imagine her murder victims would consider that fair enough and fully approve. :)
Maybe he couldn't take the time off from running the general store in Hooterville. Though he went by the name of Sam Drucker when he was there. I wonder if he was hiding anything unsavory from his past.....
@pugcharlie Great movie. I actually like the curtain call. It's nice to hear the character and actors' names along seeing them. It informs the viewer in no uncertain terms who the actor is. I wish it was done today.
Seen the movie dozens of times. I remember my mom watching it when I was like 5 or 6 and the apricot juice thing I have always remembered for some reason. One thing I noticed tonite watching it on movies tv network. In the curtain call scene they dont show Frank Cady who played Mr. Daigle. I thought that was very odd.
Originally, in the book, it is said that Rhoda got away with her crimes, while Christine committed suicide. However, the Hays Code said crime was never allowed to pay in a movie, hence the change altogether, both in having Rhoda die in the actual movie, while Christine survives, and in having Nancy spank Patty.
Yes Patty McCormack did what was asked of her by doing a fantastic job on playing the character. However, she was no longer playing Rhoda when Nancy was "punishing" her. The announcer said "Miss Patty McCormack as Rhoda", she is now herself and not the character, and when the announcer said "And Miss Nancy Kelly as Christine Penmark", she was no longer "Rhoda's mother" I highly doubt Patty McCormack had it coming if she played the role like she was suppose to do. I find it off-putting that a lot of commenters like 1:07 so much, considering that the actress is herself now and no longer the Rhoda character.🤨🚩 Yes, I suppose they were trying to be funny, I did see both actresses were laughing. I also find it ironic and even more off-putting considering what usually goes on behind the scenes in Hollywood in general, they are no one to be claiming moral compass. For example, RU-vid tiktoks titled: Exposing creepy men in Hollywood. or something like that. And don't get me started on the Documentary of Shirley Temple and what went behind the scenes there.
@@XX-le1wn "What we pretend to be we eventually become."-Sigmund Freud. I think its probably beneficial to actors to be able to separate themselves from the roles they play so they can say "that isn't me" which historically many actors have had problems with.
I loved the funny ending of the closing credits. where the beautiful blue eyed blonde Rhoda finally got a good spanking that she deserved for going around killing people. Miss Patty McCormack was perfect for that role, along with her next starring role in "Kathy O'".
Well not really - I mean it wasn't really Rhoda at that point since Rhoda's been fatally struck by lightning and as far as I recall Mrs Penmark is in the hospital with a brain injury and the two have just been announced in the curtain call as Nancy Kelly and Patty McCormick. So it's just two actresses indulging in a little horseplay.
Yes, Patty is very good in "Kathy O" as a spoiled child actress who's time spent (SPOILERS) with a loving family changes her for the better. A rare good guy role for Dan Duryea, who plays her studio's exasperated publicity head. Patty's character deserves a spanking for her arrogant & mean behavoir early in the film but (SPOILERS) she achieves a change of heart without the use of corporal punishment by the adults she torments. The loving kindness of others is what helps her repent of her naughty ways.
@@dontaylor7315 All the world is a stage, To sleep perchance to dream. But aye there's the rub for in that sleep who knows what dreams may come. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than your philosophies dream. The problem of evil is not really a problem when you realize the Author of the play is not limited to the curtain call to turn all the loose ends of every tragedy into a comedy. As Shakespeare's friend and fellow playwright Ben Johnson said on his deathbed, "Dying is easy. Comedy is difficult." :)
@James Scribner Well, I wonder... Since I never took in a show at the Globe when it was Shakespeare's house, I don't really know if he ever had his players indulge in hijinks during the curtain cals. It's an amusing thought - imagine Lady Macbeth horsing around with Banquo as they took their bows...
The Broadway play had Rhoda getting away with the murders. The film censors couldn't let this happen. So the actors got these ridiculous curtain calls to say, "See, it's just a movie," The spanking was a humorous touch between the actors, not the characters. The movie is painfully overacted and is a great bad movie. The Broadway play had the mother trying to kill Rhoda after which she kills herself. Rhoda is saved by neighbors to kill another day.
Remember the jumprope jingle "Johnny broke a bottle..."? It can be adapted: Down at the picnic, down at the lake Rhoda drowned a body, it was no mistake. Didn't tell Pa, burrned her Ma..." You know the rest.
New York Times, Screen: 'The Bad Seed'; Members of Broadway Cast Are Starred, By Bosley Crowther, September 13, 1956-SINCE "The Bad Seed" has been transplanted from stage to screen with the principal players of its original cast intact and with the line of its story faithfully followed, except at the very end, you might think the motion picture version would have as much shattering impact as the play-or even more, considering the opportunity for the camera to embrace a wider scene. But, by some rather curious disillusion, which probably occurs as a consequence of looking too closely at its basically melodramatic characters, this film about the monstrous mortal mischief that is done by an 8-year-old girl tends to appear synthetic. And at time it is downright droll. This is not to say that the problem which is posed on the Astor Theatre's screen lacks a peculiar fascination. The prospect of a psychopathic child who kills two people during the time span of the picture and is revealed to have killed an old lady before it begins is extraordinarily different and morbidly intriguing, to say the least. What is going to happen to this youngster plagues the curiosity throughout the film. And certainly at the outset of proceedings, it is startling and chilling to be informed, by slow stages, that this seemingly perfect youngster has caused the drowning of a boy in her class at school. This horrifying information is got across with the effect of a slow-fused bomb. But from this point on the behavior of virtually everyone in the film becomes so fantastically abnormal that it grows ridiculous and grotesque. Little Patty McCormack, who plays the murderer, not only acts with incredible sang-froid but she also postures with such calculation that it is hard to see how anyone could mistake her show of innocence for a fraud. Furthermore, little Miss McCormack looks a very mature 8-year-old. Take those manicured pig-tails off her and she could stand beside Marilyn Monroe. At the same time, Nancy Kelly makes the mother of this child so saturnine and so foolishly fatalistic that her outbursts of frenzy toward the end, when little darling coolly compounds her murders, deprive her of the sympathy she should have. This reviewer had the inhuman feeling that this poor woman oddly got what she deserved. As for Eileen Heckart's performance as the grief-torn mother of the boy who is drowned, it is badly confused by broad explosions of comical drunkenness, and Evelyn Varden plays a nosy neighbor as if she were laboring to get laughs. Henry Jones as a dim-witted janitor and Joan Croydon as the principal of the girl's school play their parts so broadly or blandly that they are close to burlesque. Mervyn LeRoy, who produced and directed, has lost a great deal of the bite of the play. He has done it in a style of presentation that is ostentatious and often insincere. Also, he and John Lee Mahin, the script writer, have changed the end so that it lacks the withering irony of the original. The attitude toward the whole thing is betrayed in a post-script, calling the actors on for bows. Miss Kelly spanks Miss McCormack for a gagged-up fadeout. Anything for a howl! THE BAD SEED, screen play by John Lee Mahin, based on the play by Maxwell Anderson, from the novel by William March; directed and produced by Mervyn LeRoy for Warner Brothers. At the Astor. Christine . . . . . Nancy Kelly; Rhoda . . . . . Patty McCormack; LeRoy . . . . . Henry Jones; Mrs. Daigle . . . . . Eileen Heckart; Monica . . . . . Evelyn Varden; Kenneth . . . . . William Hopper; Bravo . . . . . Paul Fix; Emory . . . . . Jesse White; Tasker . . . . . Gage Clarke; Miss Fern . . . . . Joan Croydon; Mr. Daigle . . . . . Frank Cady
LOVE this movie. As a young boy, the lightening strike was such a powerful ending. It was if God chose to remove such an evil child from this Earth. Always remember that scene.
Ha! Ha! I love the spanking part. So funny. It's so funny too because them two are actually laughing when they did that. I love this movie so darn much. Nothing wrong about Rhoda getting killed by lightening. My Mom and I had loved that part. So, no infect on me. I know that in the book that the mother was killed, not Rhoda. I found that sad because I love the mother. She is nice and beautiful. But, I have to understand that this is suppose to be scary so the child will have to end up getting a
This was at a time when they wouldn't have been allowed to let Rhoda get away with everything, so they had to kill her off at the end. I wonder if they had to let her mother live, though?
The end was her being struck by lightening. The curtain call was the best ever, showing a pretend spanking for her being so bad. They dont an cant make movies this great anymore
Mark Ford Because this world stinks now because parents don't want to teach their children right from wrong anymore, they want to make friends with them.Liberal democrats are responsible for this horrible world and that's why things are bad now! Remember Freedom is for people to do what they're suppose to do not what they want to do !!!!!!!!!!!!!
@@shimmeringfairydust3275 It has nothing to do with Trump it has to do with right and wrong. A system that worked for over 150 years when children and families did the proper things worked. This all changed 30 years ago and now many people are sorry for it. This is a proven fact !!!!!
@JubalCalif This was after the movie actually ended. I haven't seen it in yrs. but I'm pretty sure the little girl (bad seed) was struck by lightening.
Ms Kelly and Ms McCormick are smiling as the one turns the other over her knee. Patty reacts as any 10 yr old of that time would have, kicking, squirming and putting a hand back to protect her "self esteem". Ms Kelly is enjoying the dynamics of this scene too. Of all of the cast her character was the most entitled and qualified to deliver "naughty" Rhoda's "comeuppance".
I watched this movie ONCE. There were a few scenes in which I had gotten to thinking her mother was going to spank her but it never happened. It appeared the mother would commit suicide instead of having to cope with her evil daughter. This spanking scene was NOT part of the movie. It did confuse some folks. This was a curtain call introducing the cast. Patti was introduced just before the mother. The spanking Patti received was only playful since there was no spanking during the movie. The mother just thought she deserved one. By Patti's reaction, it took her by complete surprise and DID sting some before the camera faded out. What a great actress she was! Can't believe the movie was made before my own time!
I don't think Patty was taken by surprise. I've seen children play that spanking game spontaneously among themselves many times and they made all the realistic noises just for fun and just as convincingly as Patty did here. I feel sure this scene was scripted but I think Kelly and McCormick were having fun with it; it's a matter of record they had developed an offscreen relationship during filming.
this movie deserves a lot of accolades for excellent cast script and direction..one of the top 10 movies ever in hollywood,,full of taboo subjects and intense drama..subject matter not in 1956...well done patty macormick and nancy kelly and henry jones.
Misery ? ? ? Really ? ? And have James Caan spank Kathy Bates ? That movie is one of my favorites and will always be on my "Desert Island" list of movies. If anything needed to be changed, they should have replaced Kathy Bates in the dessert tray scene with a random fellow female diner ( or dinette ) or possibly a large and strong effeminate guy with a man crush, eyes fixed on James Caan, walking slowly towards the poor guy and tell him "I'm your number one fan" while Lauren Bacall is completely oblivious to her client's discomfort.
Given the traumatic nature of the manner in which the film played out, the curtain call was a catharsis, especially seeing "Leroy" alive and unburnt and "Christine" giving "Rhoda" a good-natured spanking.
Actually...in the original ending..Rhoda gets away with everything. But when they prescreened it with a live audience..everyone was so appauled by that..so they changed the ending to where she gets struck down by lightning..and they "humanized" the cast in this silly introduction. It was a different time in the 50's. lol.
1. What don't you understand about the end? it was fairly straightforward. 2. Christine is a "she" 3. Rhoda deserves a lot more than a spanking thank you very much.
@Perlinator67 I know two of the child actors who played murderers: Macaulay Culkin (as Henry - The Good Son) and Chloë Grace Moretz (as Mindy/Hit-Girl - Kick-Ass series)
Hit-Girl isn't really a murderer. She's a vigilante who kills murderers, most of the time in personal self-defense. Killing murderers to stop them from killing other people is what police officers and soldiers are paid to do by the government. Both of her parents were murdered like Batman's. Totally different situation.
Indeed ! Both Patty & Nancy were smiling. It was obviously a playful spanking to lighten the mood for the audience who had just seen a movie that had rather a horrifying premise : a homicidal child !
@Jeff98177 in the original play the mother dies in the hospital and Rhoda lives to murder again. But they changed it for the movie so that the mother survives and Rhoda gets her comeuppence. Lame.
In action/war movies when the opposing force is defeated and the other enemy people are killed/slaughtered the triumph music plays at the end, one persons hero is anothers villian , one persons freedom fighter is another person terrorist, the Boston Tea Party was an act of patriotism to the American colonies and an act of cowardly terrorism to the British forces. To a little 8 year old boy watching the girl get spanked finally at the end must have been cathartic.
I imagine it was planned but Kelly and McCormack were clearly having fun with it. Their chemistry was good, McCormack felt close to Kelly and sort of adopted her as a mom-away-from-mom during production.
Absolutely. It was a play and much of the cast had played these roles on stage. Audiences were very shaken by the play and film so they did the curtain call in this 'lighthearted' fashion to assure the audience that they were actors and its all fiction. Audiences get a chance to do this in theatres when actors bow and recieve applause. They wanted the same tone for the film - to break the tension.
I would like to point out this has to be the first major film to deal with manipulating, homicidal children. And a very cute little girl at that. Not a teenager or a boy or an average plain looking child, but an adorable cute petite girl, the last person you would suspect of committing a bloody murder on a classmate. This was made in 1956, an era when on screen husbands and wives slept in separate beds, nobody said the word pregnant or even looked pregnant and juvenile crime was being blamed on that damn Rock and Roll music. It was being filmed around the same time the 1955 movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" had it's beginning and ending altered to give the film a happy ending because the first public viewing before a test audience freaked them out ( they all walked out of the auditorium in total silence ). And the Hayes Code was still in effect so they had to do something light hearted after showing an on screen electrocution of a nine year old girl.
It should be remembered that she's getting spanked after being killed by a lightning bolt so this is essentially Rhoda's final judgment in the afterlife when all the people she murdered like Leroy have already been raised from the dead so she technically hasn't murdered anyone although she has defined her character as being a very mean and dishonest girl who's spanking will be repeated over and over again probably forever somewhere in cyberspace. :)
