This is a huge cult film in my family. I first saw it at age 4 or 5. The acting and lines are b-movie quality, though the themes are interesting. When I was a kid, I used to crack my grandfather up with my imitations of Leroy, Rhoda, and Christine. My favorite was Rhoda's line, "Why should I be sad? It's Claude Daigel that got drowned, not me." My point is, this film is way over the top. I have no idea how anyone can take it seriously!
shareIt's not supposed to be a Comedy. It's a drama/horror. Little girl who kills to get stuff she wants(old lady at another city for globeand Claude for the medal) or to keep someone from telling that she killed someone(Leroy was teasing her about police getting involved with Claude Daigle's death) planned murder in the making(Rhoda was already making plans to push Monica off of the roof to get lovebirds but she was stopped as she gor killed by lightning)
Drake is repetitive. He just raps the same thing over and over as if he is in an insane asylum! LOL!
This is a huge cult film in my family. I first saw it at age 4 or 5. The acting and lines are b-movie quality, though the themes are interesting. When I was a kid, I used to crack my grandfather up with my imitations of Leroy, Rhoda, and Christine. My favorite was Rhoda's line, "Why should I be sad? It's Claude Daigel that got drowned, not me." My point is, this film is way over the top. I have no idea how anyone can take it seriously!
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!" 🐻share
it was to me, and the ending scene confirmed it
so many movies, so little time
I am formerly known as HillieBoliday....Member since May 2006
Not to me. For 1956, this was a very dark and depressing subject. Although there were some obscure murder cases involving children as the perpetrators at that time....it was not so easily discussed as it would be today. Murder back then was adult subject matter...not for children! I was 8 when I saw it at the theater in 1956; and stayed haunted by that movie days afterwards.......and it still haunts me to this day.....some 60 plus years later!
That spanking at the end of the movie for me (may be not so much for others); served to lighten the depressing and shocking nature of the movie.
"OOhhhooo....I'M GON' TELL MAMA!"
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The phoney, fawning way in which almost everybody speaks and acts certainly doesn't help in trying to take it seriously - and it doesn't look like it's supposed to be satirical, either. Also, Kelly's lead performance is often more than a little questionable and at times downright odd. A fat slice of psycho-babbling kitsch, in all - entertaining as it may be.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
A fat slice of psycho-babbling kitsch, in all - entertaining as it may be.
It's about a psychopathic child. May you never meet one in your life time ... though it sounds like it would be just deserves in your case.
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Blueghost, you need to chill and cease making nasty personal comments.
shareI stand by my statement. You're laughing at a movie that's a fictional depiction of a very real phenomenon.
Psychopathy is a condition where a persons neurons are not wired nor firing like everyone else's, and therefore they don't have a sense of empathy whatsoever.
Remember that adorable puppy or kitten you saw? If you saw it in distress you would help it. If you saw it get run over, you would be shocked. But not the girl in this movie.
The reason it's supposed to be scary, which obviously escapes you, is that she is a picturesque cute blond girl with pigtails. But she is governed by the "reptilian" portion of her brain, and only knows how to get what she wants, even if means lying and killing.
I know quite a bit about mental illness, trust me. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 20 years ago. What makes the movie humorous is the "b-movie" quality of the acting, writing, etc. It gives the film an almost satirical quality.
I think refraining from personal insults and assumptions is usually the best policy. But your use of the term "reptilian" shows me what I am dealing with here. I'm out of this conversation before it gets any weirder.
No you don't.
shareTOTALLY agree with you! This film would rank in my "Top Ten Camp Comedy Classics". The film's "comedic" aspects rest mainly on the shoulders of Nancy Kelly, who clearly chose to play her role exactly as she'd played it on Broadway for nearly 10 months--without modulating a single gesture or ridiculously overwrought line-delivery (like when she says her daughter's name with no less than SEVEN syllables..."RHO-o-o-o-o-o-da!"). Mervyn LeRoy was clearly asleep at the switch on this one...HOW did he let her perform all of those esoteric, bizarre little hand gestures she peppers her performance with?? The script is the second-biggest offender. Maxwell Anderson may have been a revered, Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright--but some of the writing in this script is just plain ridiculous! (e.g. "Well I'll be a middle-aged mongoloid from Memphis!"..and so on...). The movie is a mess of pseudo-psychiatric claptrap. My friends and I play a game called "Obscure Bad Seed Lines," just to crack each other up ("I like apricot juice...it doesn't even need ice!" etc. etc.). And during her multiple drunk scenes, count how many times Eileen Heckart throws her arm straight into the air! That's a fun drinking game! How anyone can take this movie seriously for more than five minutes is just beyond me.
shareRead the book. It is no comedy.
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