Oh, Man, Ba-a-d!

I watched The Bad Seed last night, first time since the movie originally came out and my mother took me to see it (and that's child abuse, right?).

Dang, that movie is good! I expected, on rewatching it, that it would be a campy, messed up B movie. But the acting was superb, the plot is perfect (in a 1950s way with the overdose of psychoanalytic jargon), and, well. Yeah.

In case you don't know, it's about a mother whose husband is away in the military, and she's responsible for her very weird, very manipulative daughter. Did Rhoda really harm that boy? Why was the handyman her enemy? Threats, tantrums, phony "sweet" behavior — Patty McCormack was really the accomplished little actress (that's her in the photo, trying to smuggle some matches out of the house in her perfect, fluffy dress).

McCormack was nominated for an Oscar as best supporting actress — at such a young age. Also nominated for Oscars were the actress who played the mother, and the woman who plays the drunken mother of Rhoda's schoolmate (and she won a Golden Globe for the role).

Actually, you gotta see the movie for the drunken mother. That good.