The Bad Seed, Lost in Adaptation ~ The Dom
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2017
- The Dom compares The Bad Seed to its first adaptation from 1956.
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This movie teaches an important lesson: if you're going to do a murder-suicide be sure the murder part is successful before proceeding with the suicide part.
Obviously.....
Surely that's not a lesson people actually need to learn?
@@ABeeBearLin I mean, I guess.
Depending on the method, this can be challenging. Like if you set up an explosive and the blast isn't quite as big as you'd hoped.
THE MORE YOU KNOW 🌈 ⭐️
1954: A child a serial Killer? HOW TERRIFYING
2017: A child a serial killer? that's the fifth one this year
One gets the impression that parents were as weirded out by their violent and rebellious children in the 1950s as they are today, with a closer look at the movies of the era! "The Bad Seed", "Village of the Damned", "The Blackboard Jungle", "Rebel Without a Cause", "A Touch of Evil", "Westside Story", "The Wild One", "Rope".... The creepy kid theme was also a rather popular theme to return to for Television of the 1950s and 1960s, such as "Thriller", "The Twilight Zone", and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents".
There's an undercurrent of this anxiety, given a more optimistic spin, running through a lot of the horror movies of the era as well, with misunderstood teens in hot rods experiencing friction with the law until giant spiders or lizards or martians appear, and the youngsters step up and do their part to stop the threat.
And, it's sometimes kind of hard to tell because the actors tend to look older than their roles, but gangster movies - wildly popular before "The Bad Seed" was filmed - were largely about the seemingly wild and out-of-control youth of the '30s and '40s turning to lives of crime to support their directionless, decadent, savage, and materialistic choice of lifestyle in absence of strong male role-models in the wake of WWI.
Filmgoers' worries at the time might not have come from out of nowhere, either - check out 1950s/60s-era killer kids like Peter Woodcock, Graham Young, Charlie Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, Willie Francis, Juliette Hulme and Pauline Parker, Leonard Shockley, Edmund Kemper for just a few crimes that might well have put the idea of evil killer children into the heads of contemporary novelists, playwrights, screenplay writers, and film producers....
The Child was fan of Darksouls?
Videogames are evil! It had Dark in the name, what means its racist! Its a shame we cant put the creators to deathsentence.
So what did we learn? People are Idiots and Children need more care.
2019: A child a serial killer but with power or is supernatural? Ok.. I guess, you do you.
Lol
I laughed at that...
*sigh* Every time he says "Hello beautiful watchers" it never fails to perk me right up! I am a sucker for even perceived compliments.
manypseudonyms I will reccommend 8-Bit Philosophy, then. Every video ends with "Thanks for watching, Beloved Viewer."
~ TDG
Its a late one, and its not merely percieved, but youre amazing, and surely very good looking no matter the gender you identify as
Me too! And when he told his cat something along the lines of "Say hello to the beautiful watchers!".
Well in that case, I like your channel name (very creative I like it) i'm just trying to spread positivity today :D
Supposedly the reason Leroy does a 180 at the end of the conversation with Rhoda is because up until that point, he was joking, but her reactions made him realize he was actually 100% right about her, which scared him.
Ivy Villela The thing I liked about LeRoy was that Rhoda was able to dupe and charm all the “experts” closest to her, but the simple minded grounds keeper saw through her act. I’ve had co-workers and managers like Rhoda and I felt like LeRoy. :D
Fisty McBeefPunch yeah I’ve known people like Rhoda too; minus the murderous tendency part 😉🙃
I never understood why she let him live that long. Even if she knew he had no evidence beforehand I would think that even the suggestion of him having a suspicion of he involvement would put a target on him. And if she was smart enough to know that he was pulling aligations out his ass then why not know he was full of crap when he said he had her shoes?
About her surviving the gunshot to her head: A good friend of mine tried to commit suicide the same way. He shot himself in the head and survived without lasting consequences. So yeah, it is possible.
You're right. Especially if the shot is alongside the head. It can just bypass the skull, which is surprisingly hard.
Yeah... gunshots to the head are actually a pretty unpredictable way to die, or kill someone. Say like fifty fifty at best.
The movies tell a different story, but you're legitimately about as likely to die from that ever present shoulder shot (which is *more* serious than movies let you think) than the head. The skull is surprisingly good at what it does, and the brain is incredibly adaptable to clean damage, and they didn't really have the kind of fragmenting bullets that're more likely to cause real damage back in ye day.
Bücherdrache Well... Interesting... Are you fine.
Bücherdrache interesting thing about that apparently your forehead is better fortified if you will then the rest of your head so shooting someone directly in the forehead is often a bad idea because the bone is strong enough that it's possible for the bullet to Just Bounce Off
Don't forget that people will instinctively try to avoid the gunshot, even in the case of suicide.
suggested new twist for the reboot; still set in the 50's but the child is innocent. The mother discovers she's adopted and *might* be the child of a murderer but it's not confirmed. Her paranoia about 'blood will tell' and the power of nature over nurture (and possible the influence of eugenicist acquaintances) leads her to view circumstantial evidence as proof that her child is a killer.
I think it definitely works better in the 50s with their ideas about children and girls in particular.
That could work, but I think you'd have to take the audience along with the mother, and make them think this is going to be a story where the kid is a murderer. And I think it would actually work better if the mom was the child of a serial killer. That gives us the explanation at the end that the trauma she had repressed of finding out her mother was a murderer caused her to project that on her child.
There's still a Bad Seed--it's the seed of trauma that the biological grandmother inflicted on the mother.
(Of course, to make it more marketable, they could leave just the twinge of a doubt that the daughter intentionally drove the mother to kill herself and only pretended to take the poison herself. That way you have everyone arguing over the ending. Controversy == more views.)
I think we should be writing the screen play
@@ZipplyZane what’s more, it’s the MOTHER who turns out to be the killer. She could turn out to be an unreliable narrator.
The voice wavery thing doesn't bother me because that's how my grandma ACTUALLY SOUNDS when she's upset. I don't know if it's because it's a product of being a woman in the 50s and it was expected or what, but maybe that's why she got an award for that performance?
It was probably the result of wearing corset/girdle. 🙂 You really can't get a deep breath without sounding wobbly like that in one.
I think this is also why singers did that too.
I always thought it was the actress trying to portray hysteria or looming nervous breakdown, however heavy-handedly.
That's how my mother sounds as well
Yeah, it comes across as very genuine to me
Maggie Koch I think that’s exactly what it was, an oncoming nervous breakdown, and was probably a groundbreaking choice back then, but just seems cliched 60+ years later. I didn’t find it grating.
I find it interesting that he makes fun of lighting coming from on high and killing a villain and then immediately shows a Disney movie when that is exactly how the evil queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs died.
Even that's a change. In the original story the Prince & Snow White invite her to the wedding then force her to wear red hot iron shoes and dance herself to death.
Not gonna lie, that scene where a T-Rex randomly eats Umbridge made my entire week.
I wish this scene existed
There ought to be a scene in which Umbridge is eaten by the hippogriff Buckbeak :)
@@JamesMC04 there should be a scene of her being curb stomped by the whomping willow
Alice Darhk I’m sure that could be fitted in :)
Demon Emperor Void Swag, is that from a parody somewhere, or did you make it up? (I'd worry that she'd make the poor dinosaur sick!)
I always thought the handymans 180 was because he'd just been teasing Rhoda about killing Claude Diagle and making lucky guesses but that was the moment he realized that it was all true and she was a killer.
That’s the more logical conclusion
I am surprised she didn't kill him earlier. But she did use him for her own benefit until she felt he was too close.
Thor: 1 | Evil Girl: 0
Jormundgandr says hello.
FaeQueenCory
That will be more of a draw
Does the author dying just as his book becomes a big hit sound the end point of a "deal with the devil" type story to anyone else?
No he was killed to increase the sales!
No.
Where do I sign?
More like a monkey paw thing. "I wish to be a well known author!2 And dies as soon as thats done.
From what I've heard, the theatrical bows at the end of the film were, actually, added to assure the audience that "look, we didn't actually kill a small child. She's fine and not actually evil at all". Basically, they were concerned the audience would find the subject of the film a bit disconcerting, both the idea of an evil child and the implication we should be happy that a child is dead (even if she was evil). So, they added the curtain call and a little bit of comic relief at the end just as a gentle reminder that it was just a movie and not to take it all too seriously.
As for book-Leroy pulling a 180 after suggesting that he might blackmail Rhoda, it could be that he scared himself by taking it too far, just as you assumed but... I think the more likely reason is that he suddenly realized he was antagonizing a murderer and putting his own life in danger in the process. If that's the case, he was obviously right, since him stupidly mouthing off directly leads to Rhoda adding him to her hit list.
I, also, have to second what a few other people have said: it is completely possible to survive a bullet wound to the head. Just as possible as a small child surviving a drug overdose, anyway.
The auther of the bad seed got his inspiration by a female serial killer in the 1890's by the name of Jane Toppan. Everyone in Jane's family either died, or were sent to a mental asylum. Jane was put into care at a very early age as her father was institutionalized. Jane Toppan was dubbed the bad seed.
Matilda lost in adaptation!
YESSSSSS!!!!!!
Aya Drevis PLEASE
Are you insane?! The Nostalgia Critic barely survived Mara Wilson's wrath. The Dom would have no chance!
like how the mother and father switched body types
Actually, you can see her body hit the water after the lighting hits, it's just obscured by the smoke. And given she was by the boat house, which would have had gas and diesel canisters, that explains the exploding (Also, lots of metal and a high point on the water)
Good catch. And to add to that, I've never read the book, but the film Leroy always struck me as being played as a sort of mentally-challenged and slightly malevolent man-child, mentally more of the more ordinarily cruel child than Rhoda, who by contrast seems uncannily mature, intelligent, and evil beyond her years. The interplay between the two characters worked for me for the purpose of characterization and exposition, with Leroy being one of the few characters with the twisted and stunted mind to see right through Rhoda and realize what she is, but, being a child in an adult's body, not really being in much of a position to do much about it.
Also, I believe that both the lightning strike AND the weird and out-of-place post-credits spanking scene were added at the insistence of the studio and the Hayes' censors (and, I suspect, the folks involved in the play adaptation), who were rather shocked and uncomfortable with the book's material, and wanted to ensure nobody made the mistake of thinking that Rhoda was getting away with murder: she gets struck right out of existence by lightning in a more literal sense at the end of the story, and then gets a more playful spanking after the curtain-call just to make sure the point was made, but this time more playfully, to sort of take the edge off the audience's horror and paranoia. It is a bit goofy and definitely a weird product of its time, but I grew up with these sorts of movies and I can roll with it in the same way that I can accept the hammy acting of '50s movies as part of the general style and convention you get from the era. (And also in much the same way, it's kind of like the way that silent films have their own style and conventions that I just roll with as part of their unique thing.)
@@pietrayday9915 Old comment, I know but I actually just finished the book. Leroy was portrayed there as if he was mentally challenged, and while he never does anything physical to Rhoda, he seems a little pervy at times.
If anything, the fact that they went with “struck by lightning” makes perfect sense to me - you can’t have a murderer get away with their crimes, but the murderer being a child makes for a difficult way for her to be punished. So… having her smote by God seems like the only way they could make it work (as well as because she goes out DURING A THUNDERSTORM, so it feels like she’s also kinda bringing it on herself)
The Hyaes Code, banned "Apparent cruelty to children or animals." Maybe they couldn't have a more realistic death?
Will Rigby They had to take the divine intervention route.
So they probably wanted to drown her but couldn't because that would be too graphic for the Hayes code enforcers.
So someone getting away with murder was wrong but showing a child die was perfectly fine? The 40s were weird
@@brandonjohnson633 - yes, the conventions of the Hayes Code could get some pretty weird results - as someone else noted, you do actually just barely off-screen see Rhoda's body falling into the water, so you don't exactly see her death, and her death, coming as it does as a "bolt out heaven" and the child being played up as almost (but not quite) supernaturally evil and old beyond her years (compare to the more child-like evil of man-child Leroy), and you are basically getting an off-screen, divine punishment for evil, with nobody getting away with their crimes in the end, which the Hayes Code could live with.
The Code seems pretty weird by today's standards, but it did force film-makers to find some really creative - and often far more effective - ways around the Code's limitations than just showing everything blatantly on-screen. For example, the infamous shower scene from "Pscyho" could pass the censor board because nobody is actually shown getting stabbed and no nudity appears, but most people who've ever seen that scene are convinced they see far more violence and nudity than actually appears thanks to Hitchcock's creative use of suggestion, music, sound effects, and editing. Hitchcock's best movies were masterful where that sort of thing was concerned, and Hitchcock could depict entire entire sexually-loaded conversations and scenes with something as simple as a short scene of a man making a pass at a woman, who closes her handbag and turns her back on him without a word....
Or, check out the way that the 1963 version of "The Haunting" and the 1961 version of "The Innocents" handles the subjects of sex, homosexuality, incest, child abuse, violence, and the supernatural without any on-screen sex or violence and without actually showing or referring to anything explicitly violent, sexual, or supernatural on-screen, and without even showing a single definite ghost on-screen, playing remarkably well into the stories' themes of extreme and unhealthy repression, and moral and mental disease, and resulting in a couple of the most creepy, eerie, haunting, and uncomfortable ghost movies ever made.
And then, the low-budget horror movies of Val Lewton (try "Cat People" 1942, "I Walked with a Zombie" 1943, "The Seventh Victim" 1943, "The Ghost Ship" 1943, and "Curse of the Cat People" 1944), and the best of the similarly low-budgeted film-noir classics of the 1940s and 1950s ("Double Indemnity" 1944, "Out of the Past" 1947, "The Maltese Falcon" 1941, "Murder, My Sweet" 1944, "A Touch of Evil" 1958, etc.), between the limitations of their low budgets and the oppressive film Code, found all sorts of ingenious and artistic ways around depicting sex and violence on-screen through symbolism, metaphor, the power of suggestion, and trusting the audience to understand by implication things that the Hayes Code prevented from being made explicit on-screen.
I guess what I mean is that the old Hayes Code did force some weird rules on films which won't make much sense very far outside of their own time and place (censorship rarely does!), but "necessity is the mother of invention" and the necessity of working around those rules to produce satisfying stories from darker subject matter has produced some outstanding results wherever inventive and skilled film-makers were involved, and thus in many ways the Hayes Code resulted in one of the more interesting and enduring periods of film history.
That Thor joke was solid platinum.
The Fifties weren't more innocent. They were just tons more restricted in what they could show, thanks to the Hays Code. You look at films pre-Hays code, and there's a huge difference in subject matter & what gets mentioned/said/implied/shown.
Since it's the mother passing the genes, wouldn't it technically be 'the bad egg'?
Although come to think of it, that sounds silly.
The saying is a clear metaphor. As such however so would be the saying ..."The Bad Egg". Its terrible when you start to lose your mind...
What's extra funny, is that back in the 30's and 40's, a "Bad Egg" was a common insult for someone who was no good.
Well, if she were a Pokémon glitch, it'd be fitting...
@@whiterabbit75 Yes, though "bad egg" as an insult is usually used more as an assessment of someone's character in the third person than as something you'd say directly to a person's face (i.e., "he's a bad egg"). It's, also, a relatively mild insult. A bad egg is just someone who is generally unpleasant or spoiled (like a literal egg that's gone bad). Veruca is called a "bad egg" in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, for example. So, calling Rhoda "the bad egg" would be a bit of an understatement... It'd kinda be like describing Freddy Krueger as "disagreeable". 😆
The Grandmother was the Psycho.....not her Mommy.
Huge fan of your comparisons. You do great work! Shame about the sketch at the opening; I was looking forward to it! Dom in pigtails seems like hilarity waiting in the wings.
One quibble: Rhoda is psychopathic, not psychotic. I mean she's a kid so no doctor (at least now) would diagnose her as such and would say she had Oppositional Defiant Disorder or something, but if she were psychotic that would mean she warsdisconnected from reality and did not know what she was doing. She is devoid of empathy and sees other people as objects or obstacles to be moved or removed. That's psychopathy. I don't mean to come off as an ass about this, but I suffer from a psychotic disorder and periodically I have to make this explanation to people who find out and then think I am a cold, remorseless probably-killer or something.
You're not sounding like an ass. It is very true that mental health issues are something the public seems, on one hand, to be shockingly ignorant about and on the other hand comes up in fiction, as insults in conversation or otherwise disproportionally often.
I suffer from some mental health problems myself and I have to explain misconceptions constantly as well as correct people on the usage of actual medical terms that are being used wrongly and more often than not in a pejorative manner.
It really sucks when you have a medical condition that isn't causing problems for anyone but yourself, yet have to explain to your relatives that you're not turning into a serial killer just because you're seeing a therapist and taking medication.
Thank you both for these comments! I am a survivor of traumatic brain injury, and that is how my depression was diagnosed--and eventually my borderline personality disorder, which I've had basically since the injury in 1988 but was only diagnosed in 2017. Luckily, I was already receiving appropriate therapy, though a proper diagnosis early on might have spared me literal decades of confusion. I am not a dangerous person, nor do I feel the need anymore to warn people that sometimes I go into an alternate state because I haven't fully gone there in almost 3 years.
The montage of villains and their untimely demise was just glorious XD
Lost in Adaptation How To Train your Dragon would be interesting as it is another example of "in name only" would love to see The Dom talk about the books :)
Books are amazing especially 8-12. Wonderful mixture of humor and dark storylines.
I agree with this.
Theres a book of how to train you dragon how am i kbow finding out about it.
I just got into the books (finished the first on to the second) nd so far I really enjoy how they can flush things out, even if Ican already
Snjff out their standard formula. Some of it repeating makes since I think Hiccups like 10-11, no adult is going to consistently listen to a 10 year old (I know hell age though).
There's a book?
Oh that T-rex eating Umbridge felt good
This is why I'm never having kids.
it could be recessive going back generations
Yeah, pets seem so much safer by comparison.
@@alyssaagnew4147 not likely for a rabbit to become a serial killer
@@alyssaagnew4147 Cujo?
@@caspianodinsson5084 Tell that to Australia.
2:00-2:09 Yeah, you can't really claim that something is cliché when the cliché only exists because everyone is copying the thing in question.
It's not cliche if you did it first.
The ol' "Seinfeld's Not Funny" phenomenon.
The cliche argument is overused ironically. Better to simply look for inconsistencies and contradictions in plot. That is an argument that carries far more weight than the cliche argument.
TheNotverysocial only if the person making the critique is an idiot. You seem to be one of those people who think cliches and tropes are the same thing. If something is a cliche it's objectively a flaw but can be salvaged by other story elements. If something seems cliche but somethings been done to it to freshen the concept than it's NOT a cliche! So no, using the cliche argument is fine same as any other argument, if you don't ACTUALLY know what you're on about than you have more problems than just if you're point carries weight.
I read this book when I was about fourteen. It was my first real experience with reading horror, and my anxiety disorder was nearly a decade away from being diagnosed at that point. It absolutely terrified me.
The bit about the lightning bolt killing her in the movie, followed by killing off a variety of characters from other films reminded me of a fanfic someone wrote where Dolores Umbridge gets hit with a karma curse. The caster expects it to make her life worse, because she's a horrible person, but instead she falls down the stairs at Hogwarts and dies.
😂😂 She what?! That's hilarious!
YoU hIt HiM wItH tHe ShOeS dIdN't YoU
The Conan the Cimmerian stories are another where I had to remind myself, "O.K. these are the stories that practically invented these cliches. This isn't lazy writing, it is brilliant writing even if it would be considered lazy if written today."
If you're interested in a different kind of creepy child, might I recommend, "The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane?" The book was published in 1974 and the movie was released in 1976, so turn-around was pretty quick. I've never read the book, but the movie was on HBO frequently when I was a little girl myself and it always stuck with me. It stars Jodie Foster as the nominal creepy little girl, with Martin Sheen as a rather creepy adult. I highly recommend it. At least, my memory highly recommends it. I haven't seen it in decades. :)
Carol Elaine Cyr Or for something more recent, _My Sister Rosa_ by Justine Larbalestier is a chilling and realistic depiction of an eight-year-old psychopath from her older brother's perspective. Warning: if you own or love guinea pigs, there's one scene that may fuck you up emotionally. Not too graphic, since the horror is mostly psychological, but I felt numb inside for a few hours after I finished reading it.
Hello. Does someone drive off a cliff with her at the end? I seem to remember The Bad Seed ending that way but am obviously wrong. Wondering if I'm mixing the two endings.
Thank you for the recommendations! I've never seen that one, and I love the "creepy kid" subgenre of horror film - "The Bad Seed" is one of my favorites", and I rather liked the very similar movies "The Innocents" (1961, highly recommended), "The Other" (1972), "Joshua" (2007), "Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told" (1967), "Village of the Damned" (1960), "The Pit" (1981), and "Devil Times Five" (1974)....
"The Exorcist", "The Omen", and "Rosemary's Baby" are fine, too, and movies like "The Shining" and "Pet Semetary" have their moments as well, but they tend to get most of the attention in this genre....
Anyway, I plan to check out "The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane" and "My Sister Rosa" right away! I've heard of "The Little Girl...", but can't believe I have never seen it after all these years! And "My Sister Rosa" is new to me. The both sound like a treat!
@Olga - The older film version of "The Bad Seed" ends with a lightning strike, play-like curtain call, and then the actress playing "Rhoda" getting spanked playfully before the credits finish rolling. But, I've never seen the newer version of the film - didn't know it even existed - and it might have ended with the scene you remember. I'm curious enough now to check this remake out as well..... (Edit: a quick glance over the synopsis on Wikipedia for "The Bad Seed" 1985 seems to suggest that it ends much like the earlier version, but without the contrived lightning strike or the weird "playful" ending, so I'm not sure which movie you remember, but I don't quite recognize that scene! Good luck identifying it!)
this is indeed two years old but hey - i've read the book, and i think it's pretty good! definitely a neat example of creepy child, but i think it could've been justified?
@@pietrayday9915 super old but "The Good Son" is a fun creepy kid movie
The role call was added to the end do to the fact that in the 50s it was stay looked down on to make a child a killer. It was added after all filming was done. I saw this on Turner classic once.
I did amateur theatre as a child and there was a local director who wanted to do the play version of this with me as Rhoda. *g* I was amazed to go to IMDb and discover that Patty McCormack, the original Rhoda, went on to play Monica Quartermaine on General Hospital and also appear in the 2018 remake of The Bad Seed.
She also filled in for Katherine Hays on As The World Turns.
@@jeffreycone7504 did she? I well remember Hays, first because ATWT was one of my mother's soaps, and second because she played Gem in the Star Trek Original Series 3rd-season episode "The Empath".
Dont forget the crappy Macaulay Culkin remake in the 90s where they switched genders and called it "the Good Son"
Paul Church didn't the Nostalgia Critic review it, without talking?
yes he did.
I didn’t think that movie was too horrible as it was fun to see Macaulay not be all cute Kevin McAllister. However it is an inferior movie to the majority of ‘killer kid’ genre; however we get little Elijah Wood pre-LOTR
I had never heard of "Bad Seed" before that movie. So "Good Son" was my first introduction to it.
I actually like Good Son better.
MIGHTY THOOOOOR
I genuinely bursted into laughter XDDD
I know two people who survived GSW to the head, and were basically fine. This was a great lost in adaptation episode.
The movie the Good Son is basically the same movie.
I was going to ask that!
.....you keep weird company.
Except The Dom said it was a shot to the Brain, not a shot to the head, so even less likely to survive.
@Bladezer 3000 not really. I met my fair share of military vets and some of them got a bullet to the head or injury related to it (like shrapnel or such to the brain). Since you need to be hit at a specific spot in the brain to die and the skull is pretty good at protecting your brain. A shot to the chest is far more deadlier. There's a reason snipers are trained to shot at the chest.
I was going to say this. The Good Son was a great movie inspired by this book. :) And yeah, people do oddly survive GSW to the head more frequently than we imagine.
the wicked witch of the west getting hit by an out of nowhere train would make about as much sense as what actually happened to her
How about a Lost In Adaptation for "Gone With The Wind"?
Oh, I hope he does! That's one of my favorite adaptations...
That would be great! We believe in you patreon!
fraya1022 omg yes YES!! 😃
1:52 Erectus heh
Ah yes, the "nature versus nurture" argument everyone loves to pretend they're an expert on. Ultimately, I think people can agree it's a mix.
For some reason, there don't seem to be any genetics that point to doing good things, just bad things. We far more often get the "your parents were bad so you're bad, too" more than "your parents were practically saints so you are, too." Earliest media instance I can think of for this is the original Frankenstein, where the monster was suggested to be "evil" because it was given the brain of a criminal (which was, of course, malformed) instead of a normal "good person" brain. But saying actions are due to strictly genetics is such a dated concept.
Well psychopathy is inheritable. There are no comparable mental diseases making you good.
That moment when you realize that Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird was arguing from eugenics.
On that account though, it's hard to be too judgmental, as its consistent with the time period (mid-1930s) in which it's set.
Actually I'd say the original Frankenstein's Monster is more the nature side as he only becomes a monster in reaction to everyone being monstrous to him, including his creator, based on his appearance.
Half the problem is genetics itself is as far as we currently know filled with lots of sequences that "imply" and "contribute to" instead of straight up "controls". For example, two identical twins can have genetic markers that are consistent with type-one diabetes (the autoimmune disorder one, not the one you're probably thinking of) and only one of said twins gets diabetes. The result is that we're not even sure how far the Nurture side can effect physical abnormalities let alone mental or psychological ones.
Agreed, Frankenstein's Monster pretty much does everything in his power to be 'good,' but is so thoroughly rejected and hated by society that he feels he has no choice but to be what they see him as. Victor is the real monster in that story, rejecting his monster as soon as it's created, abandoning it, and trying to remove himself from any semblance of consequence or blame for the creature's actions. Victor tries to blame the monster's crimes on his 'malformed' brain and the unnatural way he came into being alive, but it's pretty clearly all Victor's fault.
I LOVE that you did this film! I haven't thought about it in years. I grew up watching the original and even as a child, I found the 80s remake disappointing. I never knew there was a book, but now some things my grandmother pointed out about the story make sense. She used to refer to the B&W film as being the 'second version' of the story. And had informed me that the mother died and the child survived in the original. I'm assuming now that she was talking about the book. Despite the time it came out, the over the top acting and the Hays code that you mentioned, I still find this film quite charming. And Rhoda is remarkably acted. Even better than some of the psychopathic child killers who followed in her tracks. I especially love what her mother was driven to do and the fact that she could do it so calmly and with deliberate premeditation. It was far more bold, decisive and even questionably evil than how parental characters often reacted to their own killer children in later films. The book and the film were ballsy as hell :D
on a tangential note: I wonder if having the medical professionals in the movie completely balk at the idea of such psychotic tendencies being genetic, has something to do with the rising concern of child abuse at the time. I mean, back in the day, if you had a child who misbehaved or gave you difficulty, it was much easier to label said child as naturally inclined to be bad. Rather than look at outside influences or even parental responsibility and possible abuse. I'm curious if the subtext was; if a child is illbehaved, it's not their fault or nature, it's YOUR fault for failing as a parent. Just a thought.
Seeing Umbridge die was quite cathartic, thanks for that.
Could you do a Lost in Adaptation for:
- It and Carrie by Stephen King
- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre
- A mega review comparing Frankenstein or Phantom of the Opera to their many adaptations, most of which are very loose adaptations.
- I, Claudius & Claudius the God vs. the mini-series of I, Claudius
- Wuthering Heights and one of the many loose adaptations (you could go on and on about how most of the films ignore the books two narrators completely and how the films romanticize Cathy and Heathcliff's relationship, whereas the book goes in to detail showing how toxic their relationship is and how it ruins several generations, which the films also cut out for the sake of time).
That third point about Frankenstein and Phantom is what The Dom Oscars are for~! Come to think of it, I'd like to see him do another one of those as well; The only one I've seen so far is the one for A Christmas Carol
He was going to do IT but decided not to since he's working on moving right now.
No, much like Romeo & Juliette, Edward & Bella, and Christian & Ana, movies and people try to make Heathcliff & Cathy some sort of romantic ideal.
Only if they compare Le Carre's book to the Alec Guinness mini-series. My favorite 6 hours of TV.
*jumps up and down excitedly* Yay! The Bad Seed!
Yeah, I think you're right about this one starting many of those tropes. Hey, they have to start somewhere.
Another thing they left out was that before they moved to that apartment they had a dog that Christine began to suspect Rhoda killed because having a dog was more work than she wanted to do. Same apartment where Rhoda pushed the old lady down the stairs.
Really enjoying your lost in adaptations on older films and books. Extra factors,affecting the adaptation are added, which I wouldn't have thought of due to not living at the time. That being said your modern lost in adaptions are also very enjoyable, just for differing reasons for me. The mix of modern and historic also makes a fun mix up, adding extra freshness to your posts.
Always love seeing episodes of adaptations during the Hayes code. Here's my (likely often made) suggestion to do 'Psycho'.
I agree that "Psycho" would make a great comparison for its book, especially since I finally read the book last year. I'll also suggest "The Innocents" (1961) vs. the story "The Turn of the Screw", and perhaps a glance at some of the more recent (and far less subtle) remakes/readaptations, as well as Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" vs. "The Haunting" (1963) and maybe its dreadful 1999 remake (which bears almost nothing in common with the novel beyond a couple names and a creepy house!)
Pietr Ayday all those would be good comparison videos
Thanks Dom! You've introduced me to many new reads... definitely going to seek this one out for my interest in the psych aspect alone.
Fun thing, I recently studied both the film and the book in University well studying the topic of "evil".
Nature vs Nurture, Free-will, agency and responsibility that kind of stuff.
That Umbitch scene made my day. Thank you.
Your wit and enthusiasm is quite simply a joy.
Good show old chap.
Saw this movie growing up in the 70's. Even as a kid I was surprised a movie like this was made. But then Patton place the original movie left me feeling the same way. Gotta say I love it for the cringe factor alone.
Film and acting in general from the time period is a fascinating subject. For one point, the acting for the quivering speech was considered great because before it mostly focused on women crying and contorting their faces as they yelled when they were upset. There were exceptions, obviously, but this level of portrayal of fear was far from common. Here, it was very obvious for the audience to not only understand that she was afraid, but to feel it, as well.
If you ever want an exercise in spotting film differences, look at award winning films from the 50's to award winning films in the 70's. They use many of the same concepts and plots, but the focus in acting was starting to shift, so you get an interesting showcase of how acting and movies as a whole were made. Once you hit the 80's, you start falling into the more modern sentiments, particularly in visual storytelling.
I would also like to point out that Psychology was finally starting to be taken seriously by many and the 'homebrew psychologist' mentality was greatly frowned upon at the time, so they wanted to villainize this mindset as much as possible. I cannot say whether this was intended by the author or not, but it was a common mindset at the time.
I was aware of the book, but I have yet to read it, as it unfortunately slipped my mind. I'm thankful for the reminder, as many years later as it may be.
As morbid as the question may be, and I ask this to both The Dom and any other readers, how would you permanently stop or kill a little girl in a movie in the 1950's in America? There were a lot of limitations, especially when it came to child characters, so how would anybody else handle it at the time?
A modern retelling of this would be akin to a modern retelling of Twisted Nerve. It just wouldn't work, despite how much I would love a version with better image quality and acting.
Truthfully, they had a way to kill Rhoda off - just have her and Christine not recover. Show a double funeral and the father asking why his wife would do this. Maybe show that she did write those letters but not burn them and end the movie with him finding them.
That would have worked, but the whole movie would have to be restructured for it. Still, you are correct, and that would have been very morbid, yet I believe they would have been able to get away with that. It certainly would have given a double meaning to that end card.
True, but the Hayes code and all was hampering them in using the original ending where Rhoda is saved and Christine dies. So just letting Christine succeed in killing them both would've been an easier and less hilarious out then justice via Thor.
Agreed.
Professor Persona Well permanently stopping her would have been putting her in an asylum and getting electro shock therapy or a lobotomy. No matter how horrible those places were, it didn't come out til years later how inhumane the conditions were. Also EST was(is) downplayed by doctors and that it wasn't(isn't) dangerous. Same goes for lobotomy, people were told it would improve the person. It's what happened to JFK's sister. It failed and she died in an asylum.
I did see a play performance of "The Bad Seed". I had no idea it was a book! Dom, love watching your LIA videos. Learn so much. with them!
Dom's willingness to dress in drag every other episode really just Makes the whole channel for me
that and how much of a genuinely nice, sensitive, respectful, and passionate dude he is
It's actually not too unbelievable to survive a gun shot to the head, but the spot you shoot at does matter. You heard of shooting some one between their eyes right? That's actually an awful idea because the skull is the thickest there. Shooting yourself up through the bottom of your jaw is also pretty believable in terms of surviving. However, the shot to the temple they seemed to have use for the mother's suicide is highly unlikely in terms of survivability
Another thing that'd matter is he caliber of the gun and the range. However! Hand guns are pretty deadly on those terms, though I'm not sure about weapons from that time.
That's being said, i'm not an expert. Take this with a grain of salt. XD
Strange, I was thinking of a movie coming today that had me wondering about this. EXTREMELY TIMELY!
I read about one guy who tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the head, but it ended up curing his depression. Also, my dad once encountered a guy who survived a temple shot. He (my dad) did photography for the eye clinic at Grady hospital in Atlanta, and the guy was a patient; instead of killing himself, he'd shot through his optic nerve and blinded himself.
my uncle had a terrible accident with a BB gun when he was a teen that left him with serious brain damage and, quite understandably, a bitter worldview. He tried to finish the job, but he survived that as well and basically ended up with the mind of a child. He passed away last year, and I never knew him as he was before his accident, but finding out at the funeral that he'd survived all that had me dumbfounded.
That intro was...a little disturbing, to put it lightly.
4:40-4:50 Never mind, *that* was disturbing.
"I need an adult, I NEED AN ADULT!"
LOL I know what you mean about that bit from the movie, but even as recently as the 70s and 80s I remember elderly ladies making very similar remarks to me, sometimes while my parents were there - I don't think people in the early 20th century read anything sinister into it, I get the impression it's meant to be an adult compliment for children who seem mature enough to appreciate being treated like an adult, in an era where children were expected to dress, speak, and act like adults.
It was largely a Victorian-era thing to think of children less as "kids" and more as miniature adults, and a more recent phenomenon for adults to support their children well into their 30s and 40s, shelter children from "stranger danger" and whatnot well into their adult years, and to have stopped insisting that people address strangers in a formal way with "Mr."/"Mrs."/"Ms."/"Sir"/"Ma'am", etc. (I remember that, as well as saying "please" or "thank you" or "pardon me" suddenly turning weird part of the way through grade school, when younger teachers started insisting on being called by their first names and parents started insisting on being treated as playmates rather than parents). In some ways we're far more repressed and sensitive today about talking to children about serious topics like marriage and sex than the folks from the 1950s were!
Note that up to just a couple generations before, someone Rhoda's age was considered only a few short years away from being an adult fully capable (with adult permission) of marrying, getting jobs, and starting their own households at 14 or so, it wasn't unusual for 14-year-olds to own their own guns and to save up money from odd jobs to mail-order their own rifles with, for 14-year-olds to take over running households for their parents, and not a few 14-year-olds were even able to lie about their ages to go to war without raising too many eyebrows or questions!
Don't get me wrong - I don't think the mores of the 1950s were necessarily "better" than today's, but they were different.
TVTropes covers a lot of similar ideas in their "Values Dissonance" discussion:
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ValuesDissonance
The Maltese Falcon. Like this movie, there was a very fast turnaround time between when the book was published and when the movie was made.
I remember watching this at my grandmother's house when I was around 13.
I have to admit that Zelda joke put a smile on my face.
I remember reading once that another reason for the faux curtain call at the end was due to the film trying to follow the Hayes Code. No, you couldn't have a murderer receive their just deserts... but you also couldn't end a movie with a child dying.
I actually put this book on my list of books to pick up if I ever find them anywhere cheap after I first saw this review, and I finally managed to get my hands on a copy. I'm not done reading it yet but, to me, the really unnerving part of the book isn't the child killer. It's the dozens of adults who have never heard of warning signs and the fact that, by the time this book starts, this kid has been kicked out of multiple schools and THROWN A PUPPY OUT OF A SECOND STORY WINDOW, and no one ever thought to take her to a child psychologist.
What in the flipping flip was WRONG with people?!?! If a kid today expressed even Rhoda's less terrifying behaviors (stealing, bullying, and emotional flatness), she'd have been in treatment for years by the time the story started and she would have been the first person the cops talked to after her classmate died.
The old hays code did that with Vertigo aswell, not letting a criminal go unpunished I mean. Never heard of this book before but I might pick it up just to have a read through, the fact that the girl explodes at the end did make me do a spit take though followed by laughter~
Also, asking the audience not to give away the ending, didn't Hitchcock also do that with Psycho?
The "don't give away the ending" thing was a pretty popular trope at the time with movies, plays, and the like. I'm sure you're right about "Psycho", and I'm pretty sure William Castle did it a time or two as well with some of his wonderful gimmick-loaded horror movies of the '50s. I don't feel like researching it, but I think that as a promotional gimmick it might go back at least as far as "Citizen Kane", and I'm sure it's reappeared at least as recently as M. Knight Shyamalin's "The Sixth Sense". The whole "spoilers" warning thing is a more recent, audience-driven incarnation of the original sentiment....
IIRC Hitchcock went even further and asked theaters to basically lock the doors when the movie started to keep out latecomers.
Also, did Vertigo go with a blatant smiting for its ending or did that movie figure out a subtler way to do the bad guy in?
@@boxorak Yep, he did tell them to lock the doors and iirc they agreed.
In Vertigo it was just the main character having the radio on and heard that the bad guy got caught and arrested when he was trying to get into Sweden or Switzerland.
The staff hated having this record this scene so much h that they added some ridiculous news about having a cow released onto a schools premises just to mock this ending that little bit more
@@boxorak Which was a bit of an anomaly for the time; as I understand it, movies ran on a continuous loop and you just arrived whenever and left when it reached the part you arrived at. I think that's where the phrase "this is where I came in" got started.
And Hitch went even FURTHER...the story goes that he went around buying up every copy of Robert Bloch's novel that he could find so fewer people would read it and find out the ending!
The plot sounds similar to The Good Son. Can't get a kid creeper than frickin Macaulley Culkin!
The Good Son is basically a genderbent version of The Bad Seed.
Yeah I think that was back when he was doing it more for comedic value. It's been years since I've seen the movie but I remember it giving me nightmares! Damn that kid was creepy!
How is opinion poorly researched?
True but at the same time I don't watch the videos because he knows what he's talking about. I enjoy the comedy and recalling how silly some movies were from my childhood. That's just me though.
I love that you choose some older films and less well known properties like this sometimes. Cheers!
I don't find the quivering voice annoying. Maybe if I saw the full film, I would find it super annoying, but just those short clips, it felt very effective.
I know people who sound exactly like that when they're upset and I have a different, but still severe, voice tremor when I'm upset, so I didn't find it annoying at all. Seemed more believable to me.
I thought it was pretty good. Though I imagine the dramatic effect of it wears off really fast if she uses it all the time.
Thomas Degroat just wanted to say I love your profile picture 👌
In a way, it kind of adds to the tension of the movie - she does do it a lot, but it seemed to start out very subtle and only appeared rarely, then ramped up as it became more and more clear that there was something wrong. It's all a bit ham-handed by modern film-making standards, but it's not very far out of line for the "hammier" standards of plays and films of the 1940s and 1950s, where the limitations of the technology and media kind of meant you needed a little more effort to telegraph emotion and other subtler points so that audiences who might miss them due to problems hearing or seeing could be more certain to pick up on them....
1:50 did the Dom just make a paleontology joke?! Dom I adore you a million times more!
To be fair, Scar pretty much did lose due to an act of god since there is no logical reason why him being king should lead to drought(and Simba being king reversing that) and that's the only reason Nala found Simba.
Granted I think overhunting might have also been at play.
Maybe, but overhunting wouldn't lead to a literal drought, with it only starting to rain when Simba comes back to claim his throne. I know it's supposed to be some sort of metaphor/Fisher King thing, but that's supernatural, which I think falls under "acts of god".
Still, a meteor killing Scar WOULD have been funny.
Possibly, though overhunting may have made the problems worse. They were also running out of food iirc.
I thought they were running out of food because of the drought driving the grazing animals away? It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, though.
Queen Grimhilde from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs died via lighting bolt from GAWD leading to a boulder smashing her; I guess Frollo died from something similar (falling from a broken gargoyle into a pit of molten lead) with added bonus of Ironic Scripture Quoting right before
I have to agree with Mr. Dom when he talks about the mother's tremulous over acting. I was surprised there were sets left without teeth marks after all the scenery she chewed..
I love watching The Dom's videos. I've always wanted to see a comprehensive comparison of the book and the movie. Also, I've never heard a lot of the books/movies he covers, and I love his reviews. Keep doing what you're doing Dom!
I'm so glad that you put this up. Not that I don't love the Game of Thrones stuff but I've really been waiting for this, The Last Unicorn, and Nightbreed since you announced it. Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!
I know two people who have survived shots to the head. One had the bullet curve around the skull and another had the bullet penetrate the skull, but miss damaging the brain.
It is possible although not common
I was sick with the flu the first time I saw this, and both Christine surviving her attempted suicide and her being struck by lightning were amazing plot twists for me.
Love that story! It makes me think of the other movie The Good Son.
I thought the shakey voice was fine and added to her hysteria
13:36 And then along came Zeus! He hurrrrled his thunderbolt....
First 'Rebecca,' now this. Hope you do 'Psycho' soon. Maybe 'The Exorcist,' maybe some other classic horror movie adapted from a novel.
Dom should do The Fly sometime, it was adapted to film within a year of the original publication. Yes, that's right, The Fly("Help me! Help me!") was an adaptation.
This was a great episode!
I always like it when he decides to cover some more obscure books.
15:04 YES!!!! I HAVE NEVER HATED A PERSON MORE THAN DOLORES UMBRIDGE SO THIS IS AWESOME!!
I kind of like that ending to the movie. It's a little funny that actual nature wins out in the end.
"Since I was no bigger than a weevil they've been sayin' I was evil
That if 'Bad' was a boot that I'd fit it,
That I'm a wicked young lady, but I've been trying hard lately--
O fuck it! I'm a monster! I admit it!
It makes me so mad my blood really starts a-going..."
---Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, "The Curse of Millhaven"
I know its been said, but my grandma also does the wavering voice thing when she's upset, so I'd also agree that it may just be a 50s thing.
All movies can be improved by having a unrepentant murderer be struck by lightning
This novel was preceded by Ray Bradbury's "The Small Assassin" (1946) about a murderous infant.
honestly thank you so much for making Umbridge get eaten by a dinosaur
Please do a LiA on The Picture of Dorian Grey and the 2009 movie Dorian. I desperately want to see a professional rip that movie to shreds. (Even if you like it, on its own, it is a HORRIBLE adaptation.)
Nah compare it to the 1945 film which is far more faithful, but Dom ripping on the ‘09 movie would be hilarious
@@LucyLioness100 He could do a Dorian Grey special looking at the many adaptations of... Varying quality... But that would be a lot of work on his part, but it would be cool to see what he thinks are the best and worst, and most and least faithful. (Because the best film might not be the best adaptation, and the best adaptation might be a really mediocre film)
He did.
I only ever heard of the play from an episode of Pretty Little Liars. I wish I could find some version of it, but it isn't like you could bootleg a play back then.
ruclips.net/video/21mfojawJ_E/видео.html
corvus13 - Thanks dude! 😂😂😂 Wasn't expecting to be able to find it.
this is a late response, but if you want to see a modern version there is a show called 'secrets and lies' where the first season is this story.
The Hays Code actually had three major rulings with regards to this film, somewhat hilariously all fairly mutually exclusive to each other:
1) Crime couldn't pay - essentially, criminals couldn't be seen to ultimately profit from or get away with their crimes by the end of the film. The comeuppance didn't necessarily have to be death but it tended to be the easiest answer, especially in movies where the (non-corrupt) police have minimal presence, since it tends to wrap everything up fairly neatly.
2) Children could not be victims of unpunished homicide - in other words, Rhoda couldn't be killed by someone who then went unpunished for killing her, despite her being a criminal and thus also subject to rule #1. In this instance, her being a child took a slight precedence over her being a criminal.
3) Suicide was a *huge* no-no - many areas in the US had attempting suicide being outright illegal at the time and as such, it could not be depicted as being successful (except in the rare cases of it fulfilling rule #1 such as, say, a gangster basically committing suicide-by-cop). The most that was allowed were characters discussing someone committing suicide offscreen or someone having committed suicide before the start of the film or (again, in rare cases) it being implied to occur after the end, but in those cases, it still couldn't be a "morally good" character or be seen to have been the right decision.
So essentially, you end up with a situation where Rhonda can't be allowed to get away with her crimes, especially the killing of a fellow child, she herself can't be killed by someone else because she's a child, she can't be arrested because it would make absolutely no narrative sense, and Christine can't successfully be seen to commit suicide. Thus, divine retribution in the form of a lightning bolt and Christine somehow surviving a bullet to the temple were kind of the only options left open at that point.
After watching this I wanted to read the Bad Seed for ages and I just got it, and am really looking forward to seeing how good it is
I think one of the things to keep in mind is that even by the 50's, stage acting was still seen as far more "legitimate" than film acting, so the overacting still makes sense. It's also a time where film actors still went through either the stage on their way up. Television was just beginning to become a feeder system.
All I could think of upon seeing the dad was that he's the guy who played Paul Drake on "Perry Mason". He was the son of noted Hollywood gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper
Any plans to do a Lost in Adaptation for The Giver?
UnNthused Artist that just narrowly escapes "in name only"
I haven't even watched it cause everyone said it was way changrd. The giver was my favorite book in middle school and i know it'll makr me angry xD
Charlie Salzman I have to disagree, I thought it was fairly faithful.
Too many Taylor Swift jokes.
I would love that! I was so angry at the adaptation!
Thanks for mentioning the 80's film. I saw that as a kid in the 90's. I was confused as to why it was black and white when I didn't remember it that way. The, "you hit him with your shoes" made a lasting impression on little me.
Huh, my local theater's doing a production of this. This is so timely for me.
Loved it!!!
I haven't seen all you videos (yet, working on it, though) but you asked yourself if other adaptation films that were made very closely after the book came out. How's about Gone With the Wind? It was made into a major motion picture almost as fast as possible. I'd love to hear you analysis!
The nature nurture debate for me has always opened my mind to seeing things as a balance of both. While there are some things that are a direct result of one or another, a lot of things are a balance. Like the difference between keeping a raised in captivity fox as a house pet, and getting a fox from Russia (a very rare fox that is the only breed of domesticated fox). They're similar, but not the same. While in the short term it can seem like nurture is changing the nature of the fox, it's not true domestication. Nurture can change nature sometimes, given enough time. But similarly, in the short term, nature often takes hold. Which is why I don't suggest wild animals as pets.
15:22 You should have dropped a house on her! That would have added a layer to the joke lol
I absolutely LOVE this movie! I want the book but my state library for the blind does not have it... *pout*
and my favorite scene is when Christine realizes who her mother is. I REALLY hope they don't do another remake. The first one was practically shot for shot and the acting was twenty times worse than in the fifties
Starr Clarke are there any audio versions available of this book for you?
I love this film, so glad you covered it!
Do, as someone who had a mother who tried to do murder/suicide more than once, the calmness comes from think I you're doing the right thing, not sociopathy like the child.
THOR BEING BALCK AND WHITE IS THE BEEEEEEEST-I didn’t even know it was a filter until Thor-Hulk came on! I thought it was film from the time!