Tomorrow, the World!
More than a decade before THE BAD SEED, Skip Homeier played a very similar role both on the Broadway stage and in the subsequent film adaptation. A wartime propaganda film of sorts, TOMORROW, THE WORLD! revolves around Emil (Skip Homeier, who later portrayed Dr Sevrin, king of the space hippies, in Star Trek), a young Nazi boy who comes to live in America. Although he tries to pull the wool over everyone's eyes, most are quick to catch on to his devious ways. Unlike Rhoda, Emil's not truly evil, but he similarly thinks he's smarter than everyone and it's a lot of fun seeing him be nasty! Based on a stage play, the dialogue is stilted, the performances are a bit over the top, the ending is abrupt and it's been speculated that there's a reel's worth of footage missing from current prints. Still, it's a lot of fun, though nowhere near as serious today as it was once intended to be. Also stars Frederic March, Agnes Moorehead, and Betty Field. Unfortunately, the film barely got a sole VHS/DVD release -- which is now out of print, but it can still be found at online rental sites. For fans of The Bad Seed, it's certainly worth a look!
Also worth noting, the movie appears to be one of the earliest that was adapted as a comic book. In 1944, Comic Cavalcade's adaptation was released as a promotional freebie, which was slightly altered and reprinted the next year. Strangely, neither version was issued with a cover. These books are very hard to come by today, and seem to sell in the triple-digits. That's too rich for my blood -- if anyone's got a scan, a share would be appreciated.
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