The play is not revived, no doubt for its melodramatic flourishes. The film is iconic for several reasons.
SPOILER
I can think of no "code" dictated fix on violence or sexual content that has had quite the resonance of the tacked on finish to "Bad Seed." While it pushes an over-the-top tale farther over, it's still a stunning kind of visceral coda, the Hollywood studio look to the sets, the rhythm of the scene punctuated by thunder. Unlike most "moral" fixes, this one seems in keeping with the up-the-ante tone of the whole story, and certainly takes us out of what is mostly a filmed stage play. It's a proscenium-framed production, almost literally stage blocked. That ending, with the fake moonlight on fake water is pure cinema.
I find the performance of Eileen Heckart hard to watch, it's so raw. The portrait of maternal grief has never been so blisteringly honest. For it to be tucked into a melodrama makes it that much more jarring. The two scenes are bravura, and Heckart delivers the necessary plot movement with a harrowing aggression. But her sadness, the cloud of sorrow that literally clings to her Mrs. Daigle is still unequaled. Her final exit just breaks my heart every single time. The movie always haunts me for days. In a way, the scene when Nancy Kelly must read Rhoda the Christmas story on the fateful night almost comes close to the same tone of melancholy. Two mothers, both losing children. Maybe we need that horror movie climax more than we admit. |
