To Kill a Mockingbird

Released: December 25, 1962

Studio: Universal

Genre: courtroom drama

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 0.59 Worldwide: --

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 256.90 Worldwide: --

Directing: Robert Mulligan

Screenwriting: Horton Foote

Starring: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Philip Alford, John Megna, Brock Peters, Robert Duvall, Kim Stanley, Collin Wilcox, James Anderson

Review:

This “coming-of-age, autobiographical story” ^FS “of racial injustice and lost childhood innocence” ^MSN was based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.” ^MSN It is “a rare example of a movie being as good as – some would say better than – the book.” ^TV The “evocation of small-town past and childhood gone” ^TV makes for “wistful nostalgia” ^TV which makes the movie’s “condemnation of racial bigotry and needless cruelty all the more potent.” ^TV

Gregory Peck delivered an “elegantly restrained performance” ^TV as Atticus Finch, a widowed “Lincolnesque, compassionate attorney” ^FS “in a racially divided Alabama town during the Depression.” ^A07 He takes on an unpopular case defending Tom Robinson (Peters), a black man “falsely accused of raping a ‘white-trash’ woman Mayella Violet Ewell (Wilcox).” ^FS

The story is “seen through the eyes of his young daughter,” ^A07 Scout (Badham) although it is narrated by Scout as an adult (Stanley). At home, Atticus strives to teach her and her older brother, Jem (Alford), “about compassion and the evils of prejudice.” ^A98 The siblings and their friend Dill (Megna) “are as fine as any cast of kids ever assembled.” ^TV Not only do they recognize the “prejudiced hatred of the bigoted townspeople” ^FS but they discover how they are engaging in the same behavior in how they react to “the mute, mentally-retarded Boo Radley,” ^FS played by Robert Duvall in his screen debut.

The movie showed that “the best way for well-intentioned filmmakers to move audiences toward generosity is to curb Hollywood’s natural inclinations – over-spending, oversimplification, and over-reliance on cheap emotion.” ^ML

Sources:

^A98 American Film Institute (1998). “AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies”
^A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition”
^FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films”
^ML Movieline (Dec. 1995). “100 Best Movies Ever Made” by Virginia Campbell and Edward Margulies
^MSN MSN Entertainment (7/19/2018). “100 Best Movies” by Shahnaz Mahmud
^TV TV Guide (August 8-14, 1998 issue). “50 Greatest Movies on TV and Video”

Awards/Honors/Lists:

Awards:

Oscars:

Wins: 2 – Best Actor (Peck), Best Adapted Screenplay

Nominations: 8 – including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Badham), Best B/W Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction