Christine's Perfect Little Angel Is a Bad Seed

It’s coming up on Halloween, the time for all things spooky, and I got a jump start on that the other day when I watched The Bad Seed, the 1956 thriller directed by Mervyn LeRoy about an eight-year-old girl who is not nearly as sweet as she seems. Earlier this year, I watched the shuddersome We Need to Talk About Kevin, the disorienting and disturbing tale of a sociopath who makes his mother miserable from infancy and ultimately turns to the violence she suspects he is capable of. This movie is much more watchable but still quite unsettling.

Patricia McCormack plays pig-tailed blonde Rhoda Penmark, who by all accounts seems perfectly sweet and well-mannered when we first encounter her. She plays piano, she curtsies perfectly, she showers her father, departing on business for several weeks, with affection. It isn’t long, however, before we catch a glimpse of her sense of entitlement and the way it can quickly spiral into rage. In these moments, McCormack’s performance reminded me of Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Unlike Veruca, however, her manipulation of her parents is more subtle and insidious.

Playing Rhoda’s mother Christine is Nancy Kelly, who starts the movie seeming slightly addled and eventually goes into full-tilt madness as her world begins to crumble around her. The plot provides an explanation for Rhoda’s behavior that is some comfort to the audience, since her veiled malice didn’t just spring out of nowhere – though it could make someone think twice about adoption. Christine loves her daughter, but she also fears her as evidence of her potential for evil begins to build.

The movie is pretty effective in letting that proof come together slowly, though when a boy Rhoda resented turns up dead early in the movie, it’s not much of a leap to imagine that she was involved. His parents are an interesting study in how a family responds to tragedy; Frank Cady is the dignified Henry, who bears his pain with quiet stoicism, while Eileen Heckart’s Hortense takes to perpetual drinking and lodging half-formed accusations at Christine. Her performance would be comical were its trappings not so tragic.

It’s also interesting to study other characters and their interactions with Christine and Rhoda. Evelyn Varden is Monica Breedlove, neighbor and landlady who delights in spoiling Rhoda as much as she can. The slight tension between her and Christine in regard to this overindulgence provides the first hint that something about Rhoda may be just a little off. Joan Croydon is a bit prickly as school administrator Miss Fern, who clearly knows something about Rhoda that she isn’t telling, and sneering janitor LeRoy, played by Henry James, knows how to get a rise out of Rhoda better than anyone else.

The movie is black and white, which amplifies the fact that this is an older movie and that certain things just don’t fly. Hence, most of the unpleasantness is well off-screen, making it perfectly watchable for even someone as squeamish as me. My boyfriend, who directed the play once, found aspects of it to be a bit ham-fisted, and he also noted how differently the movie ended from the play. The conclusion as it stands is a bit cheesy, but one can certainly understand how movie-goers, particularly those of the 1950s, might prefer it. But then I’ve already said too much, as a stern post-credits warning insists that viewers not divulge any details of the climax.

I doubt this is a movie I would have chosen to watch on my own, but it’s suitable for this time of year, and I found myself drawn into it quite well. I agree some of the acting seems a little over-the-top, but then again, half a dozen major cast members created those roles on Broadway first, so it seems that sometimes, they simply didn’t tone things down enough for the screen. Some directing choices also seem a little odd, like showing the highly intelligent Rhoda assembling a wooden puzzle designed for kindergarteners. On the whole, however, it’s an effectively troubling movie that makes for an appropriate pre-Halloween feature.

The Tudors Intrigues But Hasn't Quite Gripped Me Yet

When I think of Henry VIII, my first association tends to be the maddeningly catchy song by Herman’s Hermits, while my second is the corpulent figure presented in several paintings. Lately, though, I’ve been getting another look at this infamous monarch thanks to The Tudors, the series created by Michael Hirst that begins with Henry as a virile young man.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars as King Henry, who is surrounded by people anxious to improve their station through his royal favor. Most of the characters on the show are schemers driven by ambition and lust for power rather than any noble purpose, and even those who serve a higher calling, such as future saint Thomas More (Jeremy Northam), can be hideously cruel. One of the few truly sympathetic main characters is Catherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy), who is devoutly religious and deeply wounded by her husband’s lack of interest in her.

As a Lutheran, I find it interesting to hear all the comments on Martin Luther, who was just beginning to become a concern for the Catholic Church and its orthodox members. Several characters have strong opinions about him, and most of them are quite virulent. Meanwhile, in the first season, Henry is moving toward the establishment of the Anglican Church, which will allow him to divorce Catherine and take another wife.

That wife-to-be is Anne Boleyn, played by Natalie Dormer with a restrained seductive ferocity. She is a vixen who really knows how to capture and hold the king’s attention by flirting while maintaining her distance, but there is a pathetic quality to her as well because she is being used as a puppet for her conniving father Thomas (Nick Dunning), who, like Sam Neill’s cunning Cardinal Wolsey, is willing to stoop to just about anything for the chance to grasp more power.

Visually, the show is impressive, fully immersing viewers in the world of 1500s England. The acting is uniformly excellent as well. Because the series is on Showtime, it is able to be more grittily realistic than a network television show might be, though it’s frankly a bit more graphic than I would prefer. We’re treated to several fairly intense scenes involving trysts between characters, and more than that, most episodes include grotesque deaths, whether through execution, duels, suicide or illness. One episode involving the plague is fit for Halloween with a plot and images that are truly nightmare-worthy.

The first season has ten episodes, and each is expertly crafted in terms of props and costumes. It’s difficult to latch onto many characters, though, because few of them are very likable, not to mention the fact that it’s a pretty sure bet most of them won’t be around very long. The series also has a very somber tone to it, with virtually no humor to offset the often oppressive intrigues. It is interesting to get this glimpse, however embellished, into 16th-century Europe, but this is a show perhaps best suited to history buffs and those with a high tolerance for unpleasantness.

Little Critter Has Cat Trouble in What a Good Kitty

Over the summer, my brother Nathan was taking a walk in a cemetery when he stumbled upon a tiny kitten sitting on a gravestone. When he turned to head home, the kitten followed him, and he decided to bring the furry fellow home for the night. That night turned into several, and soon Chester – named after the man on whose grave he was situated – became one of the family. He’s an adorable gray tiger who purrs like a motorboat. He’s also a boatload of trouble, not unlike the feline at the heart of the Mercer Mayer I Can Read! book What a Good Kitty.

What a Good Kitty is a recent installment in the extensive Little Critter series. It is a My First reader, the lowest reading level of the five in the I Can Read! line of books for youngsters. Because of this, the book contains very short sentences featuring simple words and lots of repetition. Most pages have only one or two sentences, usually describing Kitty’s actions and the reactions of Mom, Dad and Little Sister, all of whom find this newcomer a bit of a nuisance.

As in most Little Critter books, the young scamp with the spiky hair and rumpled overalls narrates, and his thoughts are very little kiddish, making him easy for preschoolers, especially boys, to identify with. As his kitten gets reprimanded for making messes, the reader feels his frustration and empathy, since he, too, has a tendency to get into trouble just because of his high energy level.

Kitty herself is a soft gray cat with a white belly. She spends part of the book looking a bit exasperated, as though even she doesn’t have the energy to put up with Little Critter all day. At other times, though, she wears a sly smile indicating she can match him for mischief. This book shows some of the shenanigans families with kittens are likely to encounter: torn newspapers, unraveling yarn, traumatized fish and the like. And if the cat goes outside, getting stuck in a tree is always a real possibility.

This is a cute story about the trials and rewards of pet ownership. Those who want to make the book extra-fun should pay close attention to the spider and the mouse that appear throughout, often mimicking the behavior of Little Critter or Kitty. Mayer’s illustrations are so vibrant and full of details that there is enough to merit a second or third reading even though the story itself is very simple. No matter how intently they peruse the pages, for children eager to welcome a kitten into the home, this sweet tale with give them a good idea of what they are in for.

Betsy's Wedding Is a Beautiful Disaster

M*A*S*H is my all-time favorite sit-com, so I’ve always been pretty familiar with Alan Alda, but I mostly think of him in association with television, so it was interesting to see him in the 1990 movie Betsy’s Wedding, which he also wrote and directed.

In this comedy, Alda plays Eddie Hopper, a devoted dad with big dreams. There’s a Walter Mitty-ish quality about this man who spends so much of his life in daydreams, but he has achieved some measure of happiness in the real world as well. He and his wife Lola (Madeline Kahn) love each other, and they have two grown daughters, one of whom is about to get married.

Brat Pack staple Molly Ringwald plays Betsy, the spirited young woman for whom Eddie is determined to throw the perfect wedding. The problem? Betsy’s future in-laws are equally adamant about throwing the wedding themselves, and neither wedding fits with the vision that Betsy has. With so many different people determined to have a hand in this ceremony and the reception to follow, will the happy couple get lost in the shuffle?

This is a fun comedy that shows how crazy a wedding can get when there are two very different but equally strong-willed sets of parents involved. Groom-to-be Jake (Dylan Walsh) comes from a very wealthy family, and his parents’ snobbery is even more aggravating than the appeals from Betsy’s relatives to incorporate both Catholic and Jewish traditions into what she intends to be an irreligious wedding.

Less directly involved with Betsy but very enjoyable are her scuzzy uncle Oscar (Joe Pesci), who rents the couple a decrepit apartment and makes shady deals with Eddie to finance the wedding, and young, gentlemanly mobster-in-training Stevie Dee (Anthony LaPaglia), who undertakes an old-fashioned courtship of Betsy’s sister Connie (Ally Sheedy), a tough-talking cop.

The film is fun and zany without being unrealistic, though Eddie’s fantasy sequences add to the fun of the movie. There’s also a definite warmth to it, especially from Eddie’s end as he comes to terms with this big change in his family and in the sweetness of the romance between Stevie and Connie. Movies revolving around weddings always have plenty of room for disaster as emotions run high and everyone strives to ensure this day is absolutely perfect. Betsy’s isn’t, but the chaotic events that punctuate it only serve to make it more memorable and a truer reflection of the bride and groom.