In the past, I have given praise to actresses who reprised a stage role and adjusted their performances to the need of this different medium. The Bad Seed shows you that something like that was not given.
A lot of times the movie feels like a taped stage play with performances that are made for the last row in the second balcony but not the movie cameras. Especially the scenes with Eileen Heckart are obviously born on the stage.
Anyway, Nancy Kelly plays the part of Christine Penmark, the mother of little Rhoda who turns out to be…quite a girl…
Nancy Kelly establishes Christine as a loving mother and devoted wife but the way she says a shocked “Rhoda” whenever her daughter doesn’t behave the way she wants already shows that she has certain suspicions about her daughter. Later, we see that she asks a teacher of Rhoda’s school about Rhoda’s behavior. Nancy Kelly demonstrates a loving, but also worried mother who only wants the best for her child.
Christine is mostly an observing character. Things just happen to her, she barely takes initiative or becomes active, she mostly reacts. It's a character who wants a normal, quiet life.
Compared to the other characters in this movie, she could be called the straight character. She doesn’t get a juicy part like Patty or Eileen. Even though Christine is the central character who is onscreen almost every moment and who is our guide through the story, the character barely stays in ones mind and is forgotten much sooner than the supporting players. The Bad Seed never feels like Nancy Kelly’s movie. Still, Miss Kelly gets some touching moments as a mother whose complete world falls apart. Her guilt in her scenes opposite Eileen Heckart is very touching.
Unfortunately, Miss Kelly depends a lot on theatrical stage-acting. Especially in the scenes with her father, when she finds out the truth about her ancestors are both bad and good. Good because of some very dramatic impressive moments, bad because of some other, overacted and overdone moments that show that Miss Kelly relies too heavily on her stage experience instead of acting for the camera.
During the course of the movie Miss Kelly’s acting becomes sort of winy and she starts to act like a zombie, but it all makes sense because Christine Penmark is caught in the most extreme situation imaginable and there is no rational reaction to it. Nancy Kelly shows all the horror and stress that suddenly entered her life on her face that always shows a mixture of unbelieving shock and fearful tension.
Christine is a mostly confused character. All the terrible news about her and her daughter that she learns mostly evoke wonderment in her. What can she do? Nancy Kelly’s shows us that confused, fearful face for almost the whole movie. We see how she slowly starts to get into a state of hysterics. Her quiet suspicion slowly turns into fear, into affirmation, into disbelief and into a complete breakdown.
While one can understand all these feelings, Miss Kelly unfortunately delivers them in a mixture of honest expression and fake overacting. Her performance never becomes real – like the story itself, it is constructed and over-the-top and never becomes as memorable and demanding as the work of the Supporting players.
An uneven performance with enough good moments to get
8 comments:
Yeah, I think she had some good moments as well, but it's the supporting players who steal the movie, right? lol
Was she better then Bergman though? And Sage, do you have the link to Baby Doll?
I'm pretty sure it's on Youtube.
One of the worst performances ever nominated!!!
Wow. You really know nothing about real acting. Are you joking? This IS Nancy Kelly's movie. And she nails every moment.
Nancy Kelly does a good job because she knows that her role is to be reactive. She allows Patty McCormick and Eileen Heckert to steal the picture. I admit that she is over the top toward the end and convulses into hysterics. The audience, at this point, becomes disinterested in her character because she has clearly gone over the edge. As Joan Crawford said in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane", "It's still a good picture.
Nancy Kelly gives an extraordinary performance. Held spellbound by her seeming inability to be forceful even when she is angry. If you've seen other films of hers, her natural voice, on occasion, seems to pull back into her rather than out of her. In The Bad Seed she uses this quality throughout the entire film in masterful control. While we see her daughter Rhoda played by Patty McCormack is evil personified we feel that Nancy Kelly is in part responsible. Miss Kelly plays it that way. She is lost in a reality that simply cannot be real for her. She pulls us into that Limbo. Patty McCormack gives a brilliant performance, there is no other word for it. It is really one of those moments of perfection in filmdom. While frustration is felt by us through Christine Penmark. Eileen Heckart gives an over the top performance, yet just right, as a near alcoholic mother who has lost her young son. She wrenches compassion out of us with astounding power. This is a film where we must suspend our disbelief. It is so unreal and real at the same time. The landlady and the caretaker, while the former plays it syrupy and the latter plays it Machiavellian they are both excellent, and once again both believable and unbelievable. This double edge and the performers that carry it off is what makes the film so extraordinary. And..... the end of the story......in a lifetime of watching film I can only think of a few that are so powerful, 'Kiss Me Deadly' and the German film, 'The year zero', are two.
Everyone ( except Patty McCormick) in this movie is WAY too old for their part.....how old were these women when they were pregnant? Jiminy Christmas! And, everyone in this movie over acts as well ( except Patty McCormick, and her " dad").
Still, fun and love the twisted ending?
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