MovieChat Forums > The Bad Seed (1956) Discussion > Missing scenes? *SPOILERS*

Missing scenes? SPOILERS

posted 9 years ago by littlemisschelseapug-59101
7 replies | jump to latest

I absolutely love this film for all its great points and its bad points! It is just pure entertainment and the time flies by whenever I watch it.

Reading some of the reviews on amazon.com, I notice that a number of people refer to having seen some scenes that have been cut from the DVD and Blu ray releases. These are:

1) Actually seeing Rhoda force Claude to give her the medal, including hitting him with her shoe.

2) Leroy seen running away in flames when Rhoda sets fire to the packing material in the basement.

3) The crystal ball: apparently there was a scene that showed Rhoda tying a rope across the top of a staircase and the old lady fell down and broke her neck.

Interestingly enough, one reviewer commented that the scene in which Rhoda's shoes are thrown into the incinerator (and are subsequently found by Leroy) was also missing, yet this is most definitely in both the DVD and Blu ray copies I have.

One suggestion is that these missing scenes were in a preview version of the film. Has anyone else seen these?

Can't wait to get the film out for Hallowe'en!!

[–] Harold_Robbins 9 years ago

Although some of these incidents were referred to in the book and play, they were not included in the film. The scene with Leroy's death might have been difficult to show on the stage, but could easily have been managed for the film. Perhaps Warners decided the effect would be too grisly or unsettling - at any rate it was filmed just as it had been done on the stage, with Christine standing at the window and describing what's happening off-screen, as she had described what happened off-stage, and growiing increasingly hysterical. One of the decisions that has given the film its reputation for being too stagy.

"Forget it, Jake. It's the internet."

[–] jootsyfruit 9 years ago

I remember seeing those scenes in the 1985 remake of the Bad Seed. They had more graphic scenes in it. They were in colour, and the actress playing Rhoda was a brunette. I've never seen it since it came on, perhaps you are mixing up these scenes with the 1950's version.

[–] cmashieldscapting 9 years ago

The remake was the only version which showed the little boy, Claude (Mark in the remake). I have never seen him appear in any version of the original unless he is among the crowd of children at the beginning but if so is not singled out.

[–] littlemisschelseapug-59101 9 years ago

Many thanks to everyone for your comments!

I haven't ever come across these missing scenes myself: they were just mentioned in some Amazon reviews and that made me curious.

[–] cmashieldscapting 9 years ago

I'd very much like to know if these scenes really exist or are a case of "false memory syndrome"--that people read the book and pictured scenes so vividly they thought they'd seen them in the movie, possibly confused them with a similar film, or simply imagined them!

[–] Rapturegal 9 years ago

I'd very much like to know if these scenes really exist or are a case of "false memory syndrome"-

FINALLY someone else has raised this question! I thought I was crazy.

I first saw The Bad Seed was when I was around 7 yrs old in 1957. In the decades since then I have been certain there was a scene in the movie showing Rhoda hitting Claude with the shoe on the wharf. I "knew" I had seen it.

Every time the movie came on I looked for that scene but it was never there. Had it been permanently cut, I wondered? Now I realize the acting and dialogue was so remarkably vivid that the scene had somehow become reality in my mind for over 50 years.

Wow .... such marvelous story telling. They don't make movies like that anymore! 

And the dead shall be raised incorruptible,and we shall be changed.~1 Corinthians 15:52

[–] cmashieldscapting 9 years ago

True, they related the details so vividly you could picture what happened to Claude right down to the bruise standing out on his little pale dead face.