++++1/2
First a book by William March, then a Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson, this film is based on both the play and the book, and it is like nothing you have ever seen before. It's about Christine Penmark (Nancy Kelly), a young mother who comes to the terrifying realization that her 8-year-old daughter, Rhoda (Patty McCormack), is not merely sociopathic, but murderously so. Where the book lacked a certain emotional drama, the film has that and then some -- and then some more. Without the play, this would have been a very different film, but as it is, watching this deliciously dialogue-heavy movie is like walking in on a messy domestic situation and gawking, dumbfounded, at the horror of the human condition. Is it excessive? Yes, at times, but then Rhoda does another of her little manipulative turns or Christine plumbs a little deeper into her moral swamp or the mother of a boy Rhoda has killed, drunk and despondent and defiant, drops by to lay the guilt on just a little thicker or the mean caretaker tries yet again to frighten a girl he really shouldn't be messing around with -- and then it's all back on track again, this relentless tour of all the closets and all the skeletons therein. The story doesn't end quite the way it did in the book, but it's a strangely satisfying ending nonetheless. The ending of the film, on the other hand, is another unusual element, and the viewer is advised not to turn it off during the curtain calls for the actors, for LeRoy offers a final coda of macabre humor.
First a book by William March, then a Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson, this film is based on both the play and the book, and it is like nothing you have ever seen before. It's about Christine Penmark (Nancy Kelly), a young mother who comes to the terrifying realization that her 8-year-old daughter, Rhoda (Patty McCormack), is not merely sociopathic, but murderously so. Where the book lacked a certain emotional drama, the film has that and then some -- and then some more. Without the play, this would have been a very different film, but as it is, watching this deliciously dialogue-heavy movie is like walking in on a messy domestic situation and gawking, dumbfounded, at the horror of the human condition. Is it excessive? Yes, at times, but then Rhoda does another of her little manipulative turns or Christine plumbs a little deeper into her moral swamp or the mother of a boy Rhoda has killed, drunk and despondent and defiant, drops by to lay the guilt on just a little thicker or the mean caretaker tries yet again to frighten a girl he really shouldn't be messing around with -- and then it's all back on track again, this relentless tour of all the closets and all the skeletons therein. The story doesn't end quite the way it did in the book, but it's a strangely satisfying ending nonetheless. The ending of the film, on the other hand, is another unusual element, and the viewer is advised not to turn it off during the curtain calls for the actors, for LeRoy offers a final coda of macabre humor.
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