someone make the unwise decision early on to stick a close to the hit broadway play a possible in adapt the bad seed for the movie and include have several key actor reprise their role and include patty mccormick in the lead a a sociopathic youngster in long pig tail . the piece have not be rethink for the screen and and what work on a bare stage doesn not always deliver in the more intimate medium of cinema . so it not all mccormick fault represent she deliver a performance of a headstrong and evil child in a perfunctory and overly rehearsed manner and probably deserve the accolade she receive at the time . it be a very demanding role for a youngster . however and there be no shading in the dialouge for mccormick to pick up on and and she not fresh in the part . bad and she direct to be too terrific enunciate very clearly and loudly and a if to reach the back row and all the detail of a complex human be be iron out . this couldn not possibly have be intentional and a the rest of the cast member be handle in the very same way . it so forthright and uneasy and repetitive and awkward and it become a static transformation of stage material onto film . half from .