The Bad Seed

[How murderers are executed]

Leroy:
They got a little blue chair for little boys and a little pink chair for little girls.

Christine Penmark:
Rhoda, what happened to old Mrs. Post in Wichita?

Rhoda:
There was ice on the steps and I slipped and fell against her, and that was all.

Christine Penmark:
That was all?

Rhoda:
No. I slipped on purpose.

Christine Penmark:
You hit him with the shoes, didn't you? You hit him with the shoes, that's how he got those half moon marks on his forehead and on his hands. Answer me, Rhoda. ANSWER ME!

Monica Breedlove:
You sound like Fred Astaire tap tap tapping across the floor .

Hortense Daigle:
Children can be nasty, don't you think?

Hortense Daigle:
I'm drunk. It's a pleasure to stay drunk when your little boy's been killed.

Leroy:
You ask me and I say you don't even feel sorry for what happened to that little boy.

Rhoda:
Why should I feel sorry? It was Claude Daigle who got drowned, not me!

Rhoda:
You tell lies like that, you won't go to Heaven when you die!

Rhoda:
You figured out something that never happened and so it's all lies!

Christine Penmark:
Did she kill him? But she's my little girl. And I love her. Oh my baby, my baby!

Hortense Daigle:
He was such a lovely, dear little boy. He used to say I was his sweetheart and he was going to marry me when he grew up. I would laugh so. "No you won't. You'll forget about me long before then. You'll find a prettier girl and marry her." And do you know what he said then? "No, I won't. 'Cause there isn't a prettier girl in the whole world than you are."

Claudia Fern:
Smooth the wrinkles from your brow my dear, your face is so much prettier when smiling.

Rhoda:
Claude was dead. He wouldn't know if he had the medal pinned on him or not.

Rhoda:
What will you give me for a basket of kisses?

Col. Kenneth Penmark:
A basket of kisses? Why, I'll give you a basket of hugs!

Rhoda:
I like apricot juice, it doesn't even need ice.

[last title card]

Title Card:
You have just seen a motion picture whose theme dares to be startlingly different. May we ask that you do not divulge the unusual climax of this story. Thank you.

Emory Wages:
Well, I'll be a middle-aged mongoloid from Memphis.

Leroy:
[to Rhoda] I thought I'd seen some mean little gals in my time, but you're the meanest. You wanna know how I know how mean you are? 'Cause I'm mean. I'm smart and I'm mean, and you're smart and you're mean. And you never get caught and I never get caught.

Hortense Daigle:
Miss Fern dyes her hair.

Christine Penmark:
This is my daughter, Rhoda.

Reginald 'Reggie' Tasker:
Hello, Rhoda. Well, isn't she a little sweetheart!

Rhoda:
Thank you.

[she curtsies]

Reginald 'Reggie' Tasker:
That's the kind of thing that makes an old bachelor wish he were married.

Rhoda:
Oh, you like little girls to curtsy?

Reginald 'Reggie' Tasker:
The best thing left out of the Middle Ages.

Rhoda:
I'm having dinner upstairs.

Reginald 'Reggie' Tasker:
The loss is ours. All ours.

Christine Penmark:
You may go now, Rhoda.

Rhoda:
Yes, Mommy. It's been a pleasure to have met you, Mr. Tasker.

[She exits]

Reginald 'Reggie' Tasker:
Now there's a little ray of sunshine.

Christine Penmark:
Oooh, I've seen her stormy.

Rhoda:
Why can't you wash off blood?

Leroy:
Because you can't. And the police know it. You can wash it and you can wash it. There's always some left. Everybody knows that.

Hortense Daigle:
[drunkenly] I just want to have a talk with your little girl. She was one of the last to see my Claude alive.

Christine Penmark:
I know.

Hortense Daigle:
Where do you keep the perfect little lady who was the last to see Claude? I thought I'd hold her in my arms and we'd have a little talk where maybe she'd remember some little thing... any little thing.

Christine Penmark:
She's out playing, I think.

Hortense Daigle:
Well, I'm unfortunate, that's all. Drunk and unfortunate, ladies and gentlemen.

Christine Penmark:
Do you really mean to say that nice family surroundings and advantages could make no difference at all?

Reginald 'Reggie' Tasker:
Yes. It's as if these children were born blind permanently and you just couldn't expect to teach them to see.

Christine Penmark:
Well, would you notice any brutish expressions on their faces?

Reginald 'Reggie' Tasker:
Sometimes. But more often they present a more convincing picture of virtue than normal folk.

Christine Penmark:
But that's horrible!

Reginald 'Reggie' Tasker:
It's just that they are bad seeds. Plain bad from the beginning. And nothing can change them.

Leroy:
You want to know what you done after you hit him? You jerked the medal off his shirt and then you rolled that sweet little boy off that wharf from under them pilings.

Rhoda:
You don't know anything. None of what you've said is true.

Leroy:
You know I'm telling the gospel truth. You know I got it figured out.

Rhoda:
You've figured out something that never happened. And so it's all lies. Now take your excelsior to the basement and put it where you can sleep on it when you are supposed to be working.

Leroy:
They got what they call stick bloodhounds to help them look. And them stick bloodhounds can find any stick there is that's got blood on it.

[ending credits]

Christine Penmark:
And as for you...

[starts spanking Rhoda]

Monica Breedlove:
What has she DONE?

Christine Penmark:
It isn't what she's done, it's what I've done...

Christine Penmark:
Operator? I'd like to... to call... Washington... D. C., please...

[breaks down crying]

Christine Penmark:
Oh Kennith, my darling! What am I going to say to you? That our baby isn't... isn't.

Hortense Daigle:
I always considered Christine a general name. Hortense sounds fat. That's me, Hortense. Hortense. My girl Hortense, they used to sing to me, hasn't got much sense, let's write her name on the dirty fence... children can be nasty sometimes.

Rhoda:
I don't know what you're talking about. I don't feel ANY way at all.

Hortense Daigle …”I didn’t know she had so many social obligations “