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In William March's original novel, and in the Broadway hit adapted from it by Maxwell Anderson, this Gothic fable had a certain ghoulish conviction. While the theory that criminal tendencies can be inherited from criminal parents is ridiculous biology, it makes for bloodcurdling drama. To wipe what she believes is her tainted blood from the earth, the mother tries to kill herself and her daughter. In the novel and the play her suicide was successful, and the story's irony lay in the fact that the lethal child recovered with no one suspecting her crimes. Producer-Director Mervyn LeRoy clearly felt that that was too strong meat to serve moviegoers. In his film, both mother and daughter are saved by modern medicine, and then God steps in with a convenient thunderbolt to erase little Patty.
In other matters, however, Director LeRoy has been overly faithful to the play script. Actors march on and off the screen just as if they were making stage entrances and exits. Eileen Heckart, as the bereft mother of Patty's schoolmate, sobs through two long hysterical scenes that may have been effective theater but are merely repetitious film. And, as the horrors and corpses mount up (Patty is planning a fourth murder when the thunderbolt gets her), what had been eerie becomes ludicrous. At the film's end, LeRoy makes his final obeisance to the stage: all the characters smilingly take their bows, and Nancy Kelly—as she did during curtain calls on Broadway—puts Patty across her knee and gives her a spanking.
The Ambassador's Daughter (United Artists] Resolved: that a G.I. in Paris who has picked up a French model will act like a perfect gentleman. To this suppositious premise, Producer-Writer-Director Norman (Dear Ruth) Krasna devotes 102 Technicolored minutes of debate. The affirmative is passionately upheld by Olivia de Havilland, daughter of the U.S. Ambassador to France, who archly masquerades as a Dior mannequin to prove her point. The negative is defended by Adolphe Menjou, who plays a U.S. Senator determined to have Paris declared off limits to G.I.s, presumably on the grounds that it is too good for them.
To keep the argument going, Krasna brings onscreen those familiar enlisted men: the serious-minded, college-bred sergeant (John Forsythe) and his comical, nearly illiterate sidekick (Tommy Noonan), a pair whose tastes are so completely at variance that only Hollywood would think of them as buddies. Forsythe and Olivia romp through a standard Parisian romance—up the Eiffel Tower and down to the caves; along the Seine for lovemaking; to Notre Dame and the fashion shows. Along the way are substandard complications: Forsythe thinks Olivia has stolen his wallet; Olivia thinks Forsythe is trying to seduce her; Forsythe, eavesdropping on Olivia and her father (Edward Arnold), thinks they are lovers. But they triumph over these tedious misunderstandings and win through to love and marriage. It serves them right.