Character Analysis: Rhoda Penmark

Character Analysis: Rhoda Penmark

By: Brian Cotnoir

    One of the most famous Classic Horror films of All-Time has to be Mervyn LeRoy’s “The Bad Seed”.  The film was based off a stage play written by Maxwell Anderson, which was based off of the 1954 novel-of-the-same-name written by William March.  It’s the story of a mother, Christine, who begins to notice that her young daughter may not be as perfect or as innocent as she seems.  She begins to notice that her daughter has a bit of a mean streak, and is not all that phased by the macabre.  Christine has done all that she can to be a caring and loving mother and raise a polite and well-mannered daughter, but maybe there’s something in her genetics that makes her a natural Bad Seed.

CHARACTER: Rhoda Penmark from “The Bad Seed” (1956).

Looks can be deceiving

Rhoda is a young girl (probably no older than 9 or 10) and she comes from a loving family.  Her father is a Military Officer and her mother is a stay-at-home mom.  Rhoda is very close to her mother.  They share a very special bond that only a mother and daughter could have.  Her mother Christine does all she can to make sure that her daughter is polite, well-groomed, respectful, and educated.  Her daughter Rhoda is all of those things on the outside, but on the inside she is a striving perfectionist, manipulative, and driven.  When Rhoda loses a Penmanship Award to one of her classmates she is inconsolable.  She feels that the award should have gone to her and that she was wronged.  Rhoda ends up killing her classmate, Claude, and managed to get away with it.  Rhoda’s mother eventually discovers the penmanship award in her daughter’s bedroom, and after grilling her for a bit Rhoda eventually confesses to her mother she did murder her classmate. Not only that, but she also admits to killing a neighbor back when they lived in Wichita.           

Don't try to protect her, Mother.   She knows what to do...

Rhoda’s mother is in disbelief that her young daughter could have committed these murders, and it is later revealed that Christine’s mother (Rhoda’s maternal Grandmother) was actually a serial killer, and was found guilty and executed in the electric chair for her crimes.  Christine was two-years-old when this happened, and was later adopted by a new family.  Despite the fact that Christine has tried to so hard to raise her daughter in a loving and supportive environment, her daughter’s sociopathic tendencies may be genetic.  Like I said, Rhoda is driven character, and she will do whatever she can to make sure she gets here way and more importantly she will make sure that she get away with it.  

THE ACTRESS:

She'll send chills through your body

    The role of Rhoda is played by Patty McCormack.  I think Patty McCormack did wonderful job in this role.  This was not an  easy role for the time.  I haven’t done a ton of research on this yet, but I do believe that this was the first Horror film in which the villain (or antagonist) was a child.  I have not found any other films made before “The Bad Seed” in which a child commits murder.  So yeah, this was a monumental role.  I kind of feel like Patty McCormack was in the same boat as Anthony Perkins when he took the role as Norman Bates in “Psycho”.  Back then this idea of a child committing multiple murders was an unheard of and even an unthinkable notion.  This is the grandmother of the scary children in horror films, and in all honesty you could not have a better actress then Patty McCormack to play this role.

CHARACTER IS SIMILAR TO OR INSPIRED BY:

     Like I said, I could not find any other films before “The Bad Seed” where a child was the villain, but I definitely feel that having being made into a stage play and a novel before the film was made that it definitely gave Rhoda a lot of time to develop as a character.  Rhoda was a character who was the first of her kind, and every other child villain in horror films, your Damien’s and your Malachite’s, owe everything to Patty McCormack’s portrayal of Rhoda in “The Bad Seed”.  

A Fat, Animated equivalent of Rhoda

However, there is one modern day character that I feel perfectly embodies everything that Rhoda was in “The Bad Seed” and that is Cartman from “South Park”.  I was a huge fan of “South Park” long before I ever saw “The Bad Seed” and as I was watching the film for the first time, I kept laughing to myself and saying “Holy Crap, this is where they drew the inspiration for Cartman”.  Like Rhoda, Eric Cartman acts a sweet and innocent around his mother in his attempts to manipulate her and get whatever he wants, but deep down he is a sociopath who is prone to violent temper tantrums.  Cartman is the male equivalent of Rhoda 100%.

FATE OF THE CHARACTER:

     So the fate of Rhoda in the film differs from her fate in the novel and the stage play.  In both the novel and the stage play, Rhoda’s mother gives her a bottle of sleeping pills before taking her own life.  Rhoda ends up surviving her mother’s attempt at infanticide, and will go on to live and—presumably—kill again.  However, when this film was made in 1956, all film studios had to follow a strict code on what they could and could not show in films.  One of the things filmmakers weren’t allowed to have in their films was showing the villain get away with their crimes.  The Hays Code stated that “Crime doesn’t pay” so the ending had to be altered.                                    

Go And Get what you deserve!

   In the film version, it ends with Christine surviving her suicide attempt while Rhoda goes out during a lightning storm in hopes of retrieving the Penmanship Award that her mother tossed into the lake, to help cover up her daughters crime.  While searching for the award, Rhoda is struck by a bolt of lightning and killed instantly.  I can’t say for sure as to which ending I prefer.  To be perfectly honest, I think that if the film was allowed to keep its original ending that I would have been just as satisfied.  I will say this though to those of you have not seen “The Bad Seed” yet.  When you watch it make sure you watch until the very end of the credits.  It’s for your own good, I swear J.