Sunset Gun

Crimson Tide Has Turned

Jerry Bruckheimer. You produced another Hollywood ending.

Just as I was ready to turn into Lee Marvin's Walker in Point Blank, so obsessed with the money owed that I’d stand there stone-faced while Angie Dickinson hysterically smacked the shit out of me, I had a nice conversation with Cold Case's location manager. She will be reimbursing me for the tow.

Sure, this is towing and not a heist gone awry with a money drop at Alcatraz Island but still…it's my life. And my cars. And I think you should appreciate my persistence. I know you remember The Rock (good job getting a Criterion Edition of that BTW) when Nicolas Cage claims to love pressure: "I eat it for breakfast." I'd like to think you wrote that Jerry.

So thank you— even though you really had nothing to do with it. (Cold) case closed.

Gone in 60 for 177

Dear Jerry Bruckheimer,

Yesterday your show Cold Case was shooting directly across the street from my apartment building at a hotel that's a popular filming location. I've seen movies, music videos and other TV shows film at this site for that necessary skanky flavor in scenes involving murder, prostitution and drug dealing. I've watched all this stuff happen for real on my street so I don't really need a TV show to point this out, but I commend your authenticity. Having your actors enter rooms I watched a 25 dollar crack whore stumble out of the night before? Kudos.

Anyway, I've always been mindful of the creative process when crew (yours and others) are shooting there. Never once have I put my stereo speakers in the window and cranked Judas Priest when I heard "Roll sound!" Nor have I used my Motorola walkie to break into Channel One to say things like "Release the background!" or "That's a wrap!" And I've never, ever leaned out my window and hollered "Cut!" in the middle of a scene. And as much as I love movies (just read my blog) I have been tempted to do all of these things, especially when production is such a pain in the ass for those of us living in the neighborhood--for those of us who have to park on the street.

Yes, parking which leads to the purpose of this letter. On the day of your shoot I was busy writing (three stories--one on slasher movies and two DVD Reviews--Modern Romance and Cisco Pike--ever seen Cisco Pike? You really should) and I completely forgot about one of my cars. I have three cars--a 1974 Datsun 260 Z, a 1971 Ford Torino and a 1968 Ford Falcon. The Falcon, parked in its usual legal space was what? Towed!

Yep, you towed me!

Listen. Jerry. I know I should have looked out of my bedroom window a few times, but I was working on a tight deadline and my mind was elsewhere. And yes, I do have three cars. But still and more importantly, I'm not made of money. And that $177 I paid to get my car out of the yard hurt. It hurt. You, of all people, should understand. Days of Thunder? Mo-fuckin' Gone in Sixty Seconds? I know you know how this feels.

So here's the deal. I want to be reimbursed for the $177. Why? Because I deserve it. For one, I liked Con Air. I even like the part where Nicholas Cage tells that dude to "put down the bunny." For two, I've defended how insanely violent and long Bad Boys II was. I defended the film--I even wrote about it. And for three, goddmammit, I love C.S.I. And I think William Petersen is one of the hottest men on TV.

And if this isn't enough to open your heart and wallet, that towed car? You used it in an episode of C.S.I.--for free. Your crew shot in my alley and Gary Dourdan was inspecting some dead body with my Falcon clearly visible as funky background. He even leaned on my car. I didn't mind because he's one of my favorite characters and he seems like a nice person. He's also super handsome and dresses really cool.   

But, to continue. I want that $177. I don't care how much you may or may not be involved in Cold Case. You are executive producer and you are Jerry Bruckheimer so that's enough for me. And I don't want $177 with an invitation for a date from one of your sleazy AD's or producers who walks around my apartment building deluding themselves that they're Orson Freaking Welles. Or sorry, Michael Freaking Bay. I'd rather date a teamster in transpo, a guy who'd appreciate my badass Torino with a 351 Cleveland over some schmuck who drives his Orange County Chopper on Sundays for his "guilty" trip to Baskin Robbins. I know that sounds mean (and they probably wouldn't want to date me anyway, especially since I flipped a couple of them off) but these guys need to take a good look in the mirror once in a while. You should talk to some of them. Tell Gary Dourdan to give them a few tips. 

So how about it? For you, this is peanuts--literally. So come on, you've got a soft spot. Be a good guy. Be a nice producer. Make a girl's day. Remember the Titans? Remember my Falcon.

Sincerely,

Kim Morgan

Mein Cramp--Women's Health Magazine meets Signal

Writing for websites and newspapers, I've grown accustomed to the sometimes fun, sometimes annoying task of headline and caption writing. Those catchy little zingers that supposedly reel the reader into your story with "clever" plays on words— adding that extra dollop of "punch."

Frequently, I've had no control over the headline grabber (like when I argued with an editor over the header for You've Got Mail--she preferred "You've Got Treacle" over  "The Schlock Around the Corner") and sometimes they've made me chuckle (like a colleague’s "Puff Caddy" for The Legend of Bagger Vance). But for the most part, they're innocuous, cutesy add-ons that readers barely take a second glance at--especially in fluffy celeb, fitness or fashion magazines.

So it was with shock that I noticed a rather extreme bit of word play in the newest issue of the generally bland "Women's Health" magazine--something I picked up from a friend's airline reading. A rag that tells us how many calories load up a Wendy's Taco Supremo Salad (ohmigod--900! And we thought Wendy's was healthy), why us gals like high-heeled boots (apparently they make us feel sexy--we never knew!) and what kind of knit fashions to wear on the beach (a spread aptly entitled "Knit Wit"), "Women's Health" isn't exactly known for its racy, racial humor or, in this case, any association with the American Nazi Party.

Nazi Party you ask? Well, here's the thing. In one of those side bar columns called "In Focus: In Calm" where female brain-i-acs ask Dr. Deb Kern P.H.D. how to calm the F down when they're overworked (her advice? "Take a deep breath" and then complain to some co-worker about how stressed you are--thanks Deb) one reader posed this question:

"I have a hard time concentrating. Do I have adult ADD?"

OK. Now, Deb's answer was of little use (something about how you're probably too old to have recently come down with ADD--you stupid idiot) and not the reason I'm writing this. What made me actually take a second look at the sidebar filler was the accompanying header to the question. "Women's Health" emblazoned the query with this eye-grabber: "Concentration Cramp."

Get it? She can't concentrate, she must have a cramp in her brain and well...you know those places the Jews went to? Yeah, that's good! Use it!

I've got no problem with edgy humor, and, if you'll remember, the Concentration Camp joke was used on an episode of South Park when Cartman simultaneously poked fun at Kyle's Jewish-ness and lack of attention: "Maybe you need to go to concentration camp," Cartman not so subtly quipped.

But I don't think that's what "Women's Health" was up to. Unless there's some White Aryan Resistance trickster stalking the office in her Juicy Couture sweatpants singing the praises of George Lincoln Rockwell, I think these broads were just too dumb to notice the Auschwitz "funny." I'm not offended; I'm just a little surprised that no one at this mag noticed something that even, say, Louis Farrakhan would refrain from joking about. Are these ladies really that stupid and didn't get it or are they simply too lazy to look over their copy? I mean, I wrote a review for the film Apt Pupil at a Weekly and my header, "Mein Camp" was almost too much to take. We talked about it. But at least that was referring to Hitler's book and regarding an over-the-top/homoerotic film about a friggin' Nazi, not some silly question about a chick's inability to focus.

So again, I ask "Women’s Health"—What the Fuck? To quote whoever came up with a caption Tom Metzger can now use when his kid's aren't paying attention--"Women's Health" clearly suffered their own "concentration cramp."

Fab Flaxens--Alexander and More

As I’m still absorbing the maniacal dramatics of Oliver Stone’s Alexander, a picture I just saw today, my mind keeps returning not to Stone’s particular vision but rather to…Colin Farrel’s hair. Though many women loooovve the black Irish Tomcat (and I think he is an impressive actor), I agree with Oliver Stone’s assessment that Farrel makes a better blonde. And I typically prefer brunettes. So in honor of just how much hair can change a performance, I’m re-running my Top Ten Blonde Movie Moments. More on Alexander later...

10. Born Yesterday (1950) -- The Not-So-Dumb-Blonde
Now would this title make any sense if our leading lady were a brunette? Judy Holliday practically created the funny, bottle-blonde, good-time moll whose fractured vocabulary can be more creative than the poetry of e.e. cummings. Her high-pitched, birdbrain voice even embarrasses her bullying gangster boyfriend as he attempts to socialize with the classy people in Washington, D.C. Enter William Holden, who's paid to smarten her up. But in the age-old dilemma of men not really wanting their women that smart (too smart to figure out he's a jerk), her boyfriend tires of all her newfound knowledge. For example, while attempting to degrade her, he yells, "You think you're so smart, huh? What's a peninsula?" "It's that new medicine!" she shrieks back. But after his violent threat of, "Shut up! You ain't gonna be tellin' nobody nothin' pretty soon!" she barks back: "Double negative!!" Holliday's physical and vocal incarnations would later surface as Jean Hagen's Lina Lamont in Singin’ in the Rain ("An' I can' stan' em!") and Mia Farrow’s chorus chorine in Woody Allen’s Radio Days ("Hawk! I hear the canon's woar!") and, of course Reese Witherspoon's Legally Blonde protagonist Elle Woods, who may not even know just how indebted she is to this movie. Well, Reese is blonde ...

9. Blade Runner (1982) -- Cyber Blonde
A little bit Marlene Dietrich, a little bit David Bowie and all man, Rutger Hauer’s Lucifer-like replicant in Blade Runner is one of the most sublime blonds ever to hang from a rain-soaked rooftop. Against the hard-boiled Harrison Ford, the perfectly made Hauer steals the show as a broken hearted baddie who finalizes the picture with one good deed. Making many a guy weep for that extraordinarily good-looking Aryan (Hauer's Dutch but ... same thing), he no doubt, made legions of guys sneak into their girlfriend's supply of Clairol. Or come out of the closet.

8. Double Indemnity (1944) -- The Femme Fatale
Film noir had an overflow of dangerous blonde dames. For example, Lana Turner's blonde-in-white in The Postman Always Rings Twice, Veronica Lake's peek-a-boo in The Blue Dahlia and Peggy Cummins’ pistol-packing mama in Gun Crazy. But it is Barbara Stanwyck in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity that still reigns as noir's meanest ice queen and perhaps cinema's smartest blonde. As Phyllis Dietrichson, the double crosser to Fred MacMurray’s Walter Neff, Babs wore one of cinema's greatest wigs: a shoulder-length, golden-blonde number with thick under-curled bangs. With those dark glasses, she's the eternal symbol of the femme fatale. It's no mistake that Brian De Palma opens his Femme Fatale with her steely image. Don't ever think blonde means soft.

7.  The Bad Seed (1956) -- The Terrible Towhead
Though Marlene Dietrich sang, "You'll try in vain, you can't explain, the charming, alarming blonde women," she could have just as easily been singing of blonde children. Being an evil blonde child is the ultimate perversion: Blonde kiddies are supposed to represent purity. But The Bad Seed tapped into what some of us secretly think about those do-gooder Goldilocks with their cutesy smiles, pigtails and pinafore dresses -- evil! Not only does little 8-year-old badass Patty McCormack clobber a kid to death with her shoes (the ones with the taps on them), she then torches the maintenance man who is on to her. Never trust anyone over 30? Try under 13 ... and blonde.

6. White Oleander (2002)-- The Blonde-semble piece
"We're not like that. We're the Vikings," says sociopathic blonde mother Michelle Pfeiffer to her crying teenage daughter Alison Lohman in White Oleander. One of cinema's great blonde-semble pieces, this melodrama is supposed to be, in part, about the foster-care system, but Oleander really shows the varied, sometimes insane incarnations of blonde womanhood. Pfeiffer -- a gorgeous mix of Ted Bundy and Grace Kelly -- gets thrown in the slammer for killing her lover, leaving Lohman to endure a series of traumatic foster moms. One is a trashy blonde ex-stripper (Robin Wright Penn) who ends up pulling a gun on the teenager. The other is a loving but needy blonde actress (Renee Zellweger) who's so insecure she overdoses on sleeping pills. Somehow these women's tragedies are made all the worse because they're blonde, giving the picture a subversive, underlying theme of blonde oppression.  A stretch? Hardly. Check out the two massively dramatic scenes involving hair. One has a hardened Lohman attacked by a (ahem) brunette in a juvy facility. Sick of being pretty, Lohman cuts her long blonde hair with a knife! You can practically hear the ringlets screaming. She then lumbers over to the offending brunette and threatens to cut her throat. And when Lohman makes the decision to avoid the painful foster moms she's drawn to (you know, blondes), she chooses the no-nonsense, saucy foster mother with the dark hair. Then she does something that makes her gorgeous prison mama almost faint in the visiting yard: She dies her hair black! What is the world doing to her?

5. Blonde Venus (1932) -- Uber Blonde
At the same time of Jean Harlow’s popularity, Josef von Sternberg was crafting his own goddess in the very German form of leggy, sunken-cheek-boned and languid Marlene Dietrich. Sternberg made many iconic blonde movies for Marlene (The Blue Angel and The Scarlet Empress just to name a few) but Blonde Venus stands out as the ultimate in blonde ambition. Dietrich plays the full spectrum of the blonde. She's an ex-German café singer who marries a good-hearted Englishman. She's a happy hausfrau and adoring mother. Then, she's a cabaret star and harlot who dances in a gorilla suit and becomes really, really famous. You know, the whole blonde journey. The film features two iconic blonde numbers: There's Marlene in her famed white tux, tails and top hat and (you heard us right) Marlene in a gorilla suit. In one of film's most surreal moments, Marlene removes a gorilla head revealing her blonde-haloed face. To make herself even more eye-popping, she grabs a blonde Afro wig, places it on her head and sings "Hot Voodoo." Describing this moment requires two words you don't often see together: blonde genius.

4. …And God Created Woman (1956) -- Initials BB
What a difference a movie makes ... Though Marilyn was a sensation, it's French sex kitten Brigitte Bardot who created a sexual revolution. Directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, ... And God Created Woman essentially invented the sexuality, style and liberation of the next decade. Gyrating to bongo drums, frolicking naked on the beach, engaging in illicit sex and driving men crazy with a desire they never knew existed, BB threw the late '50s finely coifed blonde world on its soft derriere. Simone de Beauvoir wrote an ode to her; the Catholic Church condemned her; and paparazzi hurled themselves over cliffs for her. Not to mention Serge Gainsbourg wrote songs for and about her -- "Je t'aime" was written especially for Bardot. BB was so ahead of her time here, with her exotic, lioness blondeness of long unkempt hair, full lips and sun-kissed skin, it took the '90s to catch up to her.  There would be no Claudia Schiffer and no Pamela Anderson without BB.

3. Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953) -- The Bombshell
There are those men who swear this title isn't true, and in many cases they're right, but if you had a choice between Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, come on, who would you choose? Not that Jane isn't hot; her distinct dark-brown beauty and decency is important to Gentlemen, serving as the temper to Marilyn's gold-digging pluck. You see, the brunette gal understands MM (who, incidentally, had the same colorist as Harlow over two decades later): She's got a heart of gold, it's just heaving for diamonds. This, of course, leads to one of the greatest blonde musical numbers in cinema history: "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend," extolling the virtue of having your assets and eating them too. The number is one of the greatest blonde contributions to world history, not to mention the inspiration for another famous blonde -- Madonna.

2. Vertigo (1958) -- The Hitchcock Blonde
"Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints." So said Alfred Hitchcock, whose fave blonde, Grace Kelly, you would expect to grace this list (not to mention fellow fair-heads Tippi Hedren in The Birds and Marnie, Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest and Janet Leigh in Pyscho). Sorry. Kim Novak in Vertigo makes this thriller the ultimate Hitchcock blonde movie. Revealing the fetishistic obsession the auteur had with the fairer haired, Hitch made the aw-shucks Jimmy Stewart into a raving pervert thanks to Kim and that hair! Falling for the suicide blonde with the upswept 'do, Stewart goes to pieces when he sees her apparently dive from a church tower. But when he finds her look-a-like in a decidedly floozy brunette (Hitchcock really found a difference between the classy blondes and the feral brunette), he simply can't love her unless she's the cool blonde in the gray suit. When Novak finally walks towards him with her hair EXACTLY the way he likes it, you'd think she'd just parted the Red Sea. Leave it to Hitchcock to film the most magically perverse and sickly romantic blonde moment ever.

1. Bombshell (1933) -- The Prototype
With the help of eccentric aviator Howard Hughes, who labored over the starlet's moniker ("Blonde Landslide"? "Blonde Fury"? "Blonde Sunshine"?), cinema's first and greatest blonde, the swaggering, tough-talking but endearing Jean Harlow, was labeled the "Platinum Blonde." Director Frank Capra dutifully changed the title of his Harlow screwball from the decidedly un-sexy Gallagher to, well, Platinum Blonde. Harlow, the first fake blonde (her natural color was ash blonde), had already changed follicle history forever by making blonde the "it" color. Brave women went peroxide crazy attempting to emulate the newest screen sensation, defying those who deemed them floozies. In Victor Fleming's 1933's Bombshell, Harlow was game to make clever fun of her persona, on screen and in real life (though the film was also based on the first "it" girl Clara Bow). A hilarious look at the goofy shenanigans of a movie star, her "people," the industry, and the man who falls in love with her, Bombshell contains this famous line, hysterically uttered by a blonde-smitten Franchot Tone: "Your hair is like a field of silver daisies. I'd like to run barefoot through your hair!"

TOP TEN BLONDE MOVIE MOMENTS:

What the fuck? Didn't Bush fucking win?

So--I don't usually use this blog to write about daily stuff but...the day the election is finalized, I get an email from this classy guy. The only reason I'm posting his lovely words is for the mere fact that, finally, for the FIRST time I've been called a Kerry supporter. Usually, my hate mail comes from knee-jerk liberals assuming I'm a big, ol' closet Republican, or a straight up Repub. Which I am not. After enduring so much CRAP from those who disliked my take on The Passion of the Christ AND Team America, this uh...elegant gentleman steps in to make my day! I smiled! Thank you sir! And I'll grow up right quick. Maybe as a start, I too will use the charming, old timey Wayne's World slang of "Not!"

I read your review of 'Team America: World Police' and...YOU BETTER
LEARN TO WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE YOU IMMATURE KERRY SUPPORTING B*TCH! YOU
DON'T START OF A MOVIE REVIEW ON A PUBLIC PAGE THAT KIDS COULD SEE USING
THE "F" WORD! CHANCES ARE YOUR UNDER 25, AM I RIGHT? WELL ANYWAY, GROW
UP! YOUR NEVER GONNA LAST IN THE PROFESSIONAL WORLD WITH THAT DEGREE OF
UNPROFESSIONALISM! -a friend, NOT!

At the Movies--Total Self Absorption

"I don't understand it."
--Barbara Stanwyck

I don't like it when people snap pictures of me--especially when I am not aware of the fact. But modern technology has allowed these sneak attacks to happen. Though this post is incredibly self absorbed and I am indeed showing the paraphilia pictures, I was not happy about this.

Nevertheless, I thought I would share because 1. I'm too tired to write anything at the moment and 2. In these creepy pictures, I'm just about to watch a movie. I guess this is how I look at such a moment. In pain—but I love movies. So what the fuck?

Well I'm sitting next to some picture perv who finds it fun to capture me in irritated repose on his dumb-ass palm-pilot . Oh sure! Loads of fun! And then, sent to me as supposedly normal. No. And no. And no.

OK--YES--according to Freud, Peeping Tom and the whole cinematic voyeurism of watching a movie. Still, my clear discomfort reveals that I am aware something is happening that I will not be thrilled about later. Maybe the sharp voice of some over-analytical film NERD is piercing my brain with his self-satisfied discussion of what's-wrong-with-Godard (all the rage these days). Or maybe, I was thinking about John Sayles' newest film (Don't worry I'm not voting for Bush...don't start screaming at me please...though, I'm not telling you who I'm voting for). Maybe I was thinking about Sayles newest crap coupled with the geek behind me yammering on about it.

But then...I become slightly--slightly relaxed. As I recall my thoughts HAD drifted to all those cute kids rubbing each other out in Kinji Fukasaku's masterpiece Battle Royale which makes me content. Not the killing (well, some of the glorious, sad, beautiful killing), but the movie and Beat Kitano. I also have had Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye in continuous brain loop and not just because I have some bizarre crush on Elliot Gould--Elliot Gould? As Marlowe--yes. No, it's that scene where the security guard does a perfect Barbara Stanwyck impression that I can't get out of my noggin: "I don't understand it. I just don't understand it Walter. I’ll never understand it. I just don't understand why I don't understand it."

I've also been thinking about my little Mary-Kate Olsen quite a lot, THE fashion icon of the year. So certainly during a half-hour wait for a film to start, my mind's gonna drift there. I love both those tiny Keane paintings come to life (read my review for New York Minute). I like MK skinny too--sorry. And those big ol’ cocaine sunglasses she wears. But further I drifted...pondering one of my favorite William Friedkin films, Cruising and the whole handkerchief system. How does that relate to MK? I don't know. Poppers perhaps? I don't understand it. I just don't understand it. I don't understand why I don't understand it.

You lie all the time...

THE BAD SEED ON DVD...review:

“Why should I feel sorry? It was Claude Daigle got drowned, not me.”

Ah…the baby blonde. That symbol of purity, beauty and goodness. In 1950’s America who wouldn’t want to have a lovely, flaxen haired child to adore and spoil? Of course, everyone, but by 1956, two important films emerged, showing the underbelly of these perfect specimens. The more esteemed, and notorious (it was banned by the Legion of Decency after all) was Elia Kazan’s Baby Doll, in which the gorgeous child bride Carroll Baker destroys Karl Malden’s masculinity whilst sleeping in a crib and sucking her thumb. Never mind she’s 19 going on 20. While other relevant issues pervade Kazan’s masterful take on Tennessee Williams, the lingering image is of Ms. Baker in that crib…an iconic vision of arrested sexuality.

But just as viewers took a gander at Baby Doll, they had another blonde to contend with—a much younger, smarter and deadlier one—The Bad Seed. Pretty 10 year-old Patty McCormack playing an 8 year-old in pig tails and pinafore skirts as Rhoda Penmark, a curtsying, cutie-pie brat who’ll manipulate, terrorize and KILL anyone who gets in her way. Both actresses’ were deservedly Oscar nominated for their performances but its Mervyn LeRoy’s picture, though much loved by cultists, which remains highly underrated.

Part of the problem may lie in the transfer of play to film. LeRoy rightfully transported nearly all of the actors from the successful stage play (most likely to the annoyance of Warner Brothers who probably desired a bigger star for Rhoda’s mother) but had to change the ending. In the play, Rhoda goes on playing her continual practice piece, "Claire de Lune" on the piano after her killings. Perfect. In the film, she is socked with a lightning bolt. Also perfect. But not to endorse the harm of children, even the most evil, Warner Brothers had LeRoy tack on cast members spanking little McCormack— assuring the audience this was all a bunch of fun. You know, burning, drowning, murdering kids with tap shoes--fun!

But, in an early bit of camp—The Bad Seed is fun. Gleefully, unapologetically and relevantly fun. In its own way, the end changes just make the picture even more inadvertently subversive. How we love to hate little Rhoda. And for some of us (myself included), how we love to love her…she’s just too damn full of vicious personality. I even go so far as to champion her actions and wish she would invoke more harm before her inevitable demise.

But enough of my sick adoration and to the movie itself. Living with her mother Christine (an understandably neurotic Nancy Kelly) and mostly absent father (William Hopper--Hedda Hopper's son) her life is one of privilege and attention. When kissing her father goodbye he asks “What would you give me for a basket of kisses?” Rhoda coos back: “A basket of hugs!” Landlady and supposed expert in psychology, Monica Breedlove (Evelyn Varden) dotes on Rhoda, applauding her out-moded manners and showering her with presents—one being rhinestone movie star glasses Rhoda, of course, loves. As she prattles on about Freud and abnormal psychology, this rather ridiculous woman cannot see the freakish behavior in front of her.

But Leroy (a scene stealing Henry Jones), the disturbed, somewhat perverse handyman disrespected by the household can see right through Rhoda (you even get a sense he's got a thing for her), leading to some of the film’s greatest moments. Especially after the fateful class outing leaving one child dead; not coincidentally, the class-mate who won the penmanship medal over the all perfecting Rhoda (“Everyone knew I wrote the best hand!” she hollers in sour grapes dramatics). The little boy is drowned and Rhoda returns home as if nothing happened. She goes roller skating. Meanwhile, her mother becomes increasingly rattled.

Though some have a tough time with The Bad Seed’s talkier sequences (especially when Rhoda’s not around), they remain intriguing looks into ideas that would later be considered serious and or scientific. It also points out how psychology can’t explain everything (hence, a bad seed) as the one woman who brags of her knowledge, can’t sense anything wrong with a child who’s, at the very least, self obsessed to the point of vapid narcissism. Never mind she’s a murderer.

And, the golden moments come, again, between Leroy and Rhoda who argue like two prison inmates waiting for lockdown. Though Rhoda finds him revolting, he’s the only one who can scare her with his taunts of “stick blood hounds” or the idea that she can go to the electric chair for what he knows is a murder. “They don’t send little girls to the electric chair!” Rhoda protests. “Oh they don’t?” He answers. “The got a blue one for little boys and a pink one for little gals!”

Though films like The Omen or The Good Son have tried, nothing compares to The Bad Seed—and no child actor has out-seeded McCormack. Calm and cool, she can also rip into fits of rage that are both terrifying and hilarious. Perfectly balancing a disarmingly adult demeanor with the tantrums of a little girl, her performance is even more impressive in that it’s the blueprint. Where did McCormack learn this wonderful balance of over-theatrical camp with an icy, realistic serenity? And before John Waters became obsessed with her?

The DVD
The Bad Seed is presented in Full Screen Standard (1.33:1). The transfer is crisp, highlighting the sometimes interesting black and white cinematography (as McCormack points out in the commentary, notice all the crosses in the celluloid). Lovely to look at--you really appreciate the staging and composition of the picture in this superior transfer.

The film's audio comes in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. The sound is excellent. This is a talky movie and tone is important--from Rhoda's voice rising over her stolen shoes to the theatrical asides Leroy imparts to himself. The music is effectively conveyed and you will not get Rhoda's piano tinkling out of your head.

Extras:
The Bad Seed has nice extras, though not enough to satisfy the bigger fans. You do learn a lot about McCormack's experience through the commentary track with McCormack and Charles Busch (who wrote and starred in the campy Die Mommie Die!--he claims The Bad Seed one of his favorite movies). He probes Patty on all aspects of the film--who she got along with, how did she channel this evil little "bitch" and the transfer from play to film. It’s a fun track that isn’t afraid of underscoring the camp, even if the film is good enough to be given a straight track. But Patty’s game. Also on board is the film’s trailer and “A Conversation with Patty McCormack,” a fifteen minute conversation with the star that reveals more about her work. This is a remarkably well adjusted woman for such a performance.

Final Thoughts:

A classic and first of it’s kind, the then shocking Bad Seed holds up, albeit with a tad more camp, but with just as much psychotic gusto. Revel in McCormack’s Rhoda, a character even the obnoxiously talented Dakota Fanning couldn’t play. As Leroy spits out: “I thought I saw some mean little gals in my time, but you're the meanest!” Yes indeed, and also the greatest. If the crown could exist, Rhoda is our Queen.