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| Film vitals |
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· Year: 1956
· Director: Mervyn LeRoy
· Writer: John Lee Mahin, Maxwell Anderson (play), William March (novel)
· Cast: Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack
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· Based on the play by Maxwell Anderson, which was in turn based on the book by William March.
· Also made into a 1985 TV movie
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· The deus ex machina ending was forced upon the filmmakers by the Hollywood quality code at the time.
· Leonard Maltin reports that the curtain call sequence is "often" cut but is available on current video prints. (Thanks to Zach Williams for the correction.)
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Amazon.com
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| Synopsis |
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Is cute, polite little Rhoda what she appears to be--a perfect little girl--or is she what her mother begins to suspect, a conscienceless killer? As the bodies begin to mount, the question becomes crucial
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RATING
Out of 100 |
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77
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| COLD ANALYSIS |
| 0.75 -ATMOSPHERE |
| 1.0 -GORE |
| 1.0 -HUMOR |
| 0.5 -SCARES |
| 2.0 -TENSION |
The precursor to movies like The Omen and The Good Son is quite good, and all the more impressive because it was made in the fifties. To be certain, some of the acting borders on melodrama, the settings are stagey, and there's a lousy deus ex machina ending that was forced upon the filmmakers. But, on the other hand, many of the performances are also interesting, and the writing is convincing and intelligent. Rhoda, the little girl at the heart (if I may call it that) of this picture, is not psychotic, but rather a person to whom nothing has any intrinsic value. She kills to get what she wants, but to her killing is just the same as eating, drinking, reading a book; if concepts like "right" and "wrong" mean nothing to a person, what's to stop that person from doing anything, no matter how "horrific"? Very subtly postmodern, and still gripping.
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RATING
Out of 100 |
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75
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| COLD ANALYSIS |
| 3.0 -ATMOSPHERE |
| 0.0 -GORE |
| 1.0 -HUMOR |
| 1.0 -SCARES |
| 2.0 -TENSION |
The only additional thought I might contribute is that the actress who played Rhoda, Patty McCormack, was obviously trained to play the role on the stage, and no one seems to have bothered to help her adjust her technique for film. It's been awhile since I saw this picture, and the quality of the adult actors' performances has become hazy in my memory, with the exception of Eileen Heckart, who was wonderful as the bereaved mother of one of Rhoda's victims. But Ms McCormack's acting in this particular film stood out clearly as being inappropriate for the medium, very stilted and overblown, although she was and still is a very good actress.
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