To Kill a Mockingbird (film)



To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1962 American drama film directed by Robert Mulligan. The screenplay by Horton Foote is based on Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. It stars Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Scout. To Kill a Mockingbird marked the film debuts of Robert Duvall, William Windom, and Alice Ghostley.

The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and was a box-office success, earning more than six times its budget. The film won three Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Peck, and was nominated for eight, including Best Picture.

In 1995, the film was listed in the National Film Registry. In 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century. In 2007, the film ranked twenty-fifth on the AFI's 10th anniversary list of the greatest American movies of all time. In 2005, the British Film Institute included it in their list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. The film was restored and released on Blu-ray and DVD in 2012, as part of the 100th anniversary of Universal Pictures.

Plot
The film is narrated by the adult Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. Young Scout and her pre-teen older brother Jem live in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the early 1930s. Despite the family's modest means, the children enjoy a happy childhood, cared for by their widowed father, Atticus Finch, and the family's black housekeeper, Calpurnia. During the summer, Jem, Scout, and their friend Dill play games and often search for Arthur "Boo" Radley, an odd, reclusive neighbor who lives with his brother Nathan. The children have never seen Boo, who rarely leaves the house. On different occasions, Jem has found small objects left inside a tree knothole on the Radley property. These include a broken pocket watch, an old spelling bee medal, a pocket knife, and two carved soap dolls resembling Jem and Scout.

Atticus, a lawyer, strongly believes all people deserve fair treatment, in turning the other cheek, and to defend what you believe. Many of Atticus' clients are poor farmers who pay for his legal services in trade, often leaving him fresh produce, firewood, and so on. Atticus' work as a lawyer often exposes Scout and Jem to the town's racism, aggravated by poverty. As a result, the children mature more quickly.

Atticus is appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell. Atticus accepts the case, heightening tension in the town and causing Jem and Scout to experience schoolyard taunts. One evening before the trial, as Atticus sits in front of the local jail to safeguard Robinson, a lynch mob arrives. Scout, Jem, and Dill unexpectedly interrupt the confrontation. Scout, unaware of the mob's purpose, recognizes Mr. Cunningham and asks him to say hello to his son Walter, her classmate. Cunningham becomes embarrassed, and the mob disperses.

At the trial, it is alleged that Tom entered the Ewell's property at Mayella's request to chop up a chifforobe and that Mayella showed signs of having been beaten around that time. Among Atticus' chief defensive arguments is that Tom's left arm is disabled, yet the supposed rapist would have had to mostly assault Mayella with his left hand before raping her. Atticus points out that Mayella's father, Bob Ewell, is left-handed, implying that he – rather than Tom – beat Mayella because he caught her seducing a young black man (Robinson). Atticus also states that Mayella was never examined by a doctor for evidence of rape after the supposed assault. Taking the stand, Tom denies he attacked Mayella but states that she kissed him against his will. He testifies that he previously had assisted Mayella with various chores at her request because he felt sorry for her. His words incite a swift and negative reaction within the courtroom. Whites are viewed as superior to blacks. In his closing argument, Atticus asks the all-white male jury to cast aside their prejudices and focus on Tom's obvious innocence. Tom's sympathy for Mayella doomed his case, and he is found guilty.

As Atticus exits the courtroom, the black spectators in the balcony rise to show their respect and appreciation. When Atticus arrives home, Sheriff Tate informs him that Tom has been killed during his transfer to prison, apparently while attempting to escape. Atticus, accompanied by Jem, goes to the Robinson home to relay news of Tom's death. Bob Ewell, Mayella's father, appears and spits in Atticus' face as Jem sits in the car.

Autumn arrives, and Scout and Jem attend an evening school pageant that Scout is participating in. She is wearing a large hard-shelled ham costume, portraying one of Maycomb county's farm products. Scout's dress and shoes are misplaced, forcing her to walk home in the costume. While cutting through the woods, Scout and Jem are attacked by an unidentified man. Scout's cumbersome costume protects her from the attacker's knife but restricts her seeing much. Jem is knocked unconscious after a brief but violent struggle. The attacker is suddenly thwarted by another unidentified man. Scout escapes her costume and sees the second man staggering while carrying Jem toward their house. Scout runs into the arms of a frantic Atticus. Doc Reynolds arrives and treats an unconscious Jem's broken arm.

Scout tells Sheriff Tate and her father what happened, then notices a strange man behind Jem's bedroom door. Atticus introduces Scout to Arthur Radley, whom she knows as Boo. It was Boo who rescued Jem and Scout, overpowering Bob Ewell and carrying Jem home. The sheriff reports that Ewell, apparently seeking revenge for Atticus humiliating him in court, is dead at the scene of the attack. A knife is in his ribs. Atticus mistakenly assumes Jem killed Ewell in self-defense. Sheriff Tate realizes the truth - Boo killed Ewell defending the children. His official report will state that Ewell died falling on his knife. He refuses to drag the painfully shy, introverted Boo into the spotlight for his heroism, insisting it would be "a sin." Scout draws a startlingly precocious analogy, likening the unwelcome public attention that would be heaped on Boo to the killing of a mockingbird that does nothing but sing. Scout escorts Boo home, never to see him again.

Cast

 * Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch
 * Mary Badham as Scout
 * Phillip Alford as Jem
 * John Megna as Charles Baker "Dill" Harris
 * Frank Overton as Sheriff Heck Tate
 * Rosemary Murphy as Miss Maudie Atkinson
 * Ruth White as Mrs Dubose
 * Brock Peters as Tom Robinson
 * Estelle Evans as Calpurnia
 * Paul Fix as Judge John Taylor
 * Collin Wilcox as Mayella Violet Ewell
 * James Anderson as Robert E. Lee "Bob" Ewell
 * Alice Ghostley as Miss Stephanie Crawford
 * Robert Duvall as Arthur "Boo" Radley
 * William Windom as Horace Gilmer, District Attorney
 * Crahan Denton as Walter Cunningham
 * Richard Hale as Nathan Radley

Uncredited roles in order of appearance

 * Kim Stanley as the narrator—the voice of adult Scout—"Maycomb was a tired old town – even in 1932 when I first knew it – that summer I was six years old."
 * Paulene Myers as Jessie, Mrs. Dubose's servant, sitting close to her on the Dubose porch.
 * Jamie Forster as Mr. Townsend, sitting on a bench, with three men, near the courthouse: "If you're lookin' for your daddy, he's inside the courthouse."
 * Steve Condit as Walter, Mr. Cunningham's son, at dinner with the Finch family: "Yes, sir. I don't know when I had roast. We been havin' squirrels and rabbits lately."
 * David Crawford as David, Tom Robinson's son, sitting on the steps to the Robinsons' shack: "Good evening."
 * Kim Hamilton as Helen, Tom Robinson's wife, inside the Robinsons' shack: "Good evening, Mr. Finch."
 * Dan White as the mob leader approaching as Atticus Finch sits in front of the jailhouse: "He in there, Mr. Finch?"
 * Kelly Thordsen as a heavyset member of the mob who grabs and picks up Jem: "Well, I'll send you home."
 * William "Bill" Walker as Reverend Sykes, at the courthouse for Tom Robinson's trial: "Miss Jean Louise? Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'."
 * Charles Fredericks as the court clerk at Tom Robinson's trial: "Place your hand on the bible, please. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth...?"
 * Guy Wilkerson as the jury foreman at Tom Robinson's trial: We find the defendant guilty as charged."
 * Jay Sullivan as the court reporter at Tom Robinson's trial: "Yes."
 * Jester Hairston as Spence, Tom Robinson's father in front of the Robinsons' shack: "Hello Mr. Finch. I'm Spence, Tom's father."
 * Hugh Sanders as Doctor Reynolds, the town physician who examines Jem: "He's got a bad break, so far as I can tell. Somebody tried to wring his arm off."

Production


The producers had wanted to use Harper Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama for the set. Harper Lee used her experiences as a child in Monroeville as the basis for the fictional town of Maycomb, so it seemed that would be the best place. However, the town had changed significantly between the 1920s and the early 1960s so they made the backlot in Hollywood instead.

The Old Monroe County Courthouse in Monroeville was used as a model for the film set since they could not use the courthouse due to the poor audio quality in the courthouse. The accuracy of the recreated courthouse in Hollywood led many Alabamians to believe that the film was shot in Monroeville. The Old Courthouse in Monroe County is now a theater for many plays inspired by To Kill a Mockingbird as well as a museum dedicated to multiple authors from Monroeville.

Critical response
The film received widespread critical acclaim. As of July 2018, it maintains a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 57 reviews, with the site's critical consensus states, "To Kill a Mockingbird is a textbook example of a message movie done right — sober-minded and earnest, but never letting its social conscience get in the way of gripping drama." According to Bosley Crowther:

"Horton Foote's script and the direction of Mr. Mulligan may not penetrate that deeply, but they do allow Mr. Peck and little Miss Badham and Master Alford to portray delightful characters. Their charming enactments of a father and his children in that close relationship, which can occur at only one brief period, are worth all the footage of the film. Rosemary Murphy as a neighbor, Brock Peters as the Negro on trial, and Frank Overton as a troubled sheriff are good as locality characters, too. James Anderson and Collin Wilcox as Southern bigots are almost caricatures. But those are minor shortcomings in a rewarding film."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times criticized the film for focusing less on the blacks, denouncing the cliché of the honest, white man standing for a helpless black:

"It expresses the liberal pieties of a more innocent time, the early 1960s, and it goes very easy on the realities of small-town Alabama in the 1930s. One of the most dramatic scenes shows a lynch mob facing Atticus, who is all by himself on the jailhouse steps the night before Tom Robinson's trial. The mob is armed and prepared to break in and hang Robinson, but Scout bursts onto the scene, recognizes a poor farmer who has been befriended by her father, and shames him (and all the other men) into leaving. Her speech is a calculated strategic exercise, masked as the innocent words of a child; one shot of her eyes shows she realizes exactly what she's doing. Could a child turn away a lynch mob at that time, in that place? Isn't it nice to think so."

Walt Disney requested the film be privately screened in his house. At the film's conclusion, Disney sadly stated, "That was one hell of a picture. That's the kind of film I wish I could make."

Gregory Peck's performance became synonymous with the role and character of Atticus Finch. Producer Alan J. Pakula remembered hearing from Peck when he was first approached with the role: "He called back immediately. No maybes. […] I must say the man and the character he played were not unalike". Peck later said in an interview that he was drawn to the role because the book reminded him of growing up in La Jolla, California. "Hardly a day passes that I don't think how lucky I was to be cast in that film", Peck said in a 1997 interview. "I recently sat at a dinner next to a woman who saw it when she was 14-years-old, and she said it changed her life. I hear things like that all the time". The 1962 softcover edition of the novel opens:
 * "The Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, reminds me of the California town I grew up in. The characters of the novel are like people I knew as a boy. I think perhaps the great appeal of the novel is that it reminds readers everywhere of a person or a town they have known. It is to me a universal story – moving, passionate and told with great humor and tenderness." Gregory Peck.

Harper Lee, in liner notes written for the film's DVD re-release by Universal, wrote: Upon Peck's death in 2003, Brock Peters, who played Tom Robinson in the film version, quoted Harper Lee at Peck's eulogy, saying, "Atticus Finch gave him an opportunity to play himself". Peters concluded his eulogy stating, "To my friend Gregory Peck, to my friend Atticus Finch, vaya con Dios". Peters remembered the role of Tom Robinson when he recalled, "It certainly is one of my proudest achievements in life, one of the happiest participations in film or theater I have experienced". Peters remained friends not only with Peck but with Mary Badham throughout his life.
 * "When I learned that Gregory Peck would play Atticus Finch in the film production of To Kill a Mockingbird, I was of course delighted: here was a fine actor who had made great films – what more could a writer ask for? ...The years told me his secret. When he played Atticus Finch, he had played himself, and time has told all of us something more: when he played himself, he touched the world".

Peck himself admitted that many people have reminded him of this film more than any other film he has ever done.

Awards and honors
In 1995 To Kill a Mockingbird was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is also Robert Duvall's big-screen debut, as the misunderstood recluse Boo Radley. Duvall was cast on the recommendation of screenwriter Horton Foote, who met him at Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City where Duvall starred in a 1957 production of Foote's play, The Midnight Caller.

The American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest movie hero of the 20th century. Additionally, the AFI ranked the movie second on their 100 Years... 100 Cheers list, behind It's a Wonderful Life. The film was ranked number 34 on AFI's list of the 100 greatest movies of all time, but moved up to number 25 on the 10th Anniversary list. In June 2008, the AFI revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. To Kill a Mockingbird was acknowledged as the best film in the courtroom drama genre.

In 2007 Hamilton was honored by the Harlem community for her part in the movie. She was the last surviving African-American adult who had a speaking part in the movie. When told of the award, she said, "I think it is terrific. I'm very pleased and very surprised".


 * American Film Institute Lists:
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #34
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
 * Atticus Finch – #1 Hero
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
 * "Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing." – Nominated
 * "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." – Nominated
 * AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – #17
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers – #2
 * AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: 10th Anniversary Edition– #25
 * AFI's 10 Top 10 – #1 Courtroom Drama

Academy Awards
The film won three Academy Awards out of the eight for which it was nominated.
 * Academy Award for Best Actor — Gregory Peck (The award was presented to Peck by Sophia Loren)
 * Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay – Horton Foote
 * Academy Award for Best Art Direction – Set Decoration, Black-and-White — (Henry Bumstead, Alexander Golitzen, and Oliver Emert)

Other nominations were for
 * Best Picture (Producer, Alan J. Pakula)
 * Best Director (Robert Mulligan)
 * Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Russell Harlan),
 * Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Mary Badham)
 * Best Music, Score — Substantially Original (Elmer Bernstein)

Its main competition was Lawrence of Arabia, which won the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Score. Peter O'Toole had been nominated for Best Actor for his performance as T. E. Lawrence, but Peck won for Mockingbird. The Longest Day claimed the award for Best Cinematography, while Patty Duke was awarded Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Miracle Worker.

Golden Globe Awards

 * Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama — Gregory Peck
 * Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score — Motion Picture — Elmer Bernstein
 * Golden Globe Award for Best Film Promoting International Understanding — To Kill a Mockingbird

Cannes Film Festival
The film was selected for the 1963 Cannes Film Festival in feature film category, winning the Gary Cooper Award.

Music
Elmer Bernstein's score for To Kill a Mockingbird is regarded as one of the greatest film scores and has been recorded three times. It was first released in April 1963 on Ava; then Bernstein re-recorded it in the 1970s for his Film Music Collection series; and finally, he recorded the complete score (below) in 1996 with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for the Varese Sarabande Film Classics series.


 * 1) "Main Title" – 3:21
 * 2) "Remember Mama" – 1:08
 * 3) "Atticus Accepts The Case – Roll in the Tire" – 2:06
 * 4) "Creepy Caper – Peek-A-Boo" – 4:10
 * 5) "Ewell's Hatred" – 3:33
 * 6) "Jem's Discovery" – 3:47
 * 7) "Tree Treasure" – 4:23
 * 8) "Lynch Mob" – 3:04
 * 9) "Guilty Verdict" – 3:10
 * 10) "Ewell Regret It" – 2:11
 * 11) "Footsteps in the Dark" – 2:07
 * 12) "Assault in the Shadows" – 2:28
 * 13) "Boo Who" – 3:00
 * 14) "End Title" – 3:25