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Variety DECEMBER 11, 1962 11:00PM PT

Review: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ (1962)

CREDIT: COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL With:

Atticus - Gregory Peck Scout - Mary Badham Jem - Phillip Alford Dill - John Megna Sheriff Heck Tate - Frank Overton Miss Maudie - Rosemary Murphy Mrs. Dubose - Ruth White Tom Robinson - Brock Peters Calpurnia - Estelle Evans Judge Taylor - Paul Fix Mayella - Collin Wilcox Ewell - James Anderson Aunt Stephanie - Alice Ghostley Boo Radley - Robert Duvall Gomer - William Windom Walter Cunningham - Crahan Denton Mr. Radley - Richard Hale

Harper Lee’s highly regarded and eminently successful first novel has been artfully and

delicately translated to the screen. Universal’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” is a major film

achievement, a significant, captivating and memorable picture that ranks with the best of

recent years. Its success in the literary world seems certain to be replicated in the theatrical

sphere.

All hands involved are to be congratulated for a job well done. Obviously loving care went into

the process by which it was converted from the comprehensive prose of the printed page to the

visual and dramatic storytelling essence of the screen. Horton Foote’s trenchant screenplay,

Robert Mulligan’s sensitive and instinctively observant direction and a host of exceptional

performances are all essential threads in the rich, provocative fabric and skillfully synthesized

workmanship of Alan J. Pakula’s production.

As it unfolds on the screen, “To Kill a Mockingbird” bears with it, oddly enough, alternating

overtones of Faulkner, Twain, Steinbeck, Hitchcock and an Our Gang comedy. The power and

fascination of the story lies in the disarming and enthralling contrast of its two basic plot

components. A telling indictment of racial prejudice in the deep South, it is also a charming tale

of the emergence of two youngsters from the realm of wild childhood fantasy to the horizon of

maturity, responsibility, compassion and social insight. It is the story of a wise, gentle, soft-

spoken Alabama lawyer (Gregory Peck) entrusted with the formidable dual chore of defending a

Negro falsely accused of rape while raising his own impressionable, imaginative, motherless

children in a hostile, terrifying environment of bigotry and economic depression.

For Peck, it is an especially challenging role, requiring him to conceal his natural physical

attractiveness yet project through a veneer of civilized restraint and resigned, rational

compromise the fires of social indignation and humanitarian concern that burn within the

character. He not only succeeds, but makes it appear effortless, etching a portrayal of strength,

dignity, intelligence. Another distinguished achievement for an actor whose taste and high

standards of role selectivity is attested to by the caliber of his films and performances throughout

his career.

But by no means is this entirely, or even substantially, Peck’s film. Two youngsters just about

steal it away, although the picture marks their screen bows. Both nine-year-old Mary Badham

and 13-year-old Phillip Alford, each of whom hails from the South, make striking debuts as

Peck’s two irrepressible, mischievous, ubiquitous, irresistibly childish children. More than one

filmgoer will be haunted by sweet, misty recollections of his own childhood while observing

their capers and curiosities. Both are handsome, talented, expressive youngsters who seem

destined to enjoy rewarding careers. They are joined in their activities by little John Megna, an

unusual-looking tyke who also makes a vivid and infectious impression.

The merit and restraint of these three junior performances reflects great credit on the direction of

Mulligan. But, paradoxically, the value of the spontaneous combustion that he has achieved with

his young threesome has produced the picture’s main flaw. For half the time the children, in their

verbal zeal, cannot be heard clearly. This ragged articulation of youth is a definite irritant. But it

is overshadowed by the overall excellence of their enactments.

Mulligan’s ability to coax such fine portrayals out of pint-sized tyros is only one facet of his

superlative contribution to the film. Most noteworthy is the manner in which he instills and

heightens tension and terror where they are absolutely essential. Recognizing that menace cannot

be expressed with more shock or impact than is seen in the eyes of the beholder, especially when

the beholder is a child, he has done a masterful job of determining points-of-view from which

Russell Harlan’s camera witnesses the story’s more frightening incidents. And again, in the long

courtroom scene, Mulligan and Harlan have teamed to create a significant moment by inventive

employment of the camera. When Peck, in defending his client and making his impassioned plea

for justice, addresses his remarks to the bigoted jury, he is actually leaning over and speaking not

to 12 people, but directly to the entire audience in the theatre.

(This is a film that should play well in the American South. The artful, intimate manner in which

the scene is thus mounted and executed will be hitting home where it counts the most.)

There are some top-notch supporting performances. Especially sharp and effective are Frank

Overton, Estelle Evans, James Anderson and Robert Duvall. Brock Peters has an outstanding

scene as the innocent, ill-fated Negro on trial for his life.

Likewise Collin Wilcox as his Tobacco Roadish “victim.” Others of value are Rosemary

Murphy, Ruth White, Paul Fix, Alice Ghostley, William Windom, Crahan Denton and Richard

Hale. Pakula rates credit for his careful-unorthodox casting measures. It is a pleasure to see so

many fresh faces on the screen.

The physical appearance and other production facets of the film merit high praise. Harlan’s

photographic textures and compositions create a number of indelible images. Aaron Stell’s

editing is stable and snug, in spite of the long running time and the fact that the story virtually

cuts its main continuity in half with the central courtroom passage. Art directors Alexander

Golitzen and Henry Bumstead have created sets in Hollywood that authentically convey the

physique and characteristic of 1932 Alabama. Last, but not least, there is Elmer Bernstein’s

haunting score–fundamentally wistful, sweet and childlike in the nature of its themes, but behind

which there seems to lurk something morbidly chilling, something imminently eerie.

Tube.

1962: Best Actor (Gregory Peck), Adapted Screenplay, B&W Art Direction.

Nominations: Best Picture, Director, Supp. Actress (Mary Badham), B&W Cinematography,

Original Music Score

Review: 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (1962)

PRODUCTION: Universal. Director Robert Mulligan; Producer Alan J. Pakula; Screenplay Horton Foote; Camera Russell Harlan; Editor Aaron Stell; Music Elmer Bernstein; Art Director Henry Bumstead. Reviewed at Westwood Village Theatre, Dec. 4, '62.

WITH: Atticus - Gregory Peck Scout - Mary Badham Jem - Phillip Alford Dill - John Megna Sheriff Heck Tate - Frank Overton Miss Maudie - Rosemary Murphy Mrs. Dubose - Ruth White Tom Robinson - Brock Peters Calpurnia - Estelle Evans Judge Taylor - Paul Fix Mayella - Collin Wilcox Ewell - James Anderson Aunt Stephanie - Alice Ghostley Boo Radley - Robert Duvall Gomer - William Windom Walter Cunningham - Crahan Denton Mr. Radley - Richard Hale

ROBER NOVEMBER 11, 2001

Review: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ (1962)

Roger EbertILL A MOCKINGBIRD

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (2001) Crime, Drama, Mystery Rated Not rated 129 minutes

| Roger Ebert November 11, 2001 | 24Print Page

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a time capsule, preserving hopes and sentiments from a kinder, gentler, more naive America. It was released in December 1962, the last month of the last year of the complacency of the postwar years. The following November, John F. Kennedy would be assassinated. Nothing would ever be the same again -- not after the deaths of Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, not after the war in Vietnam, certainly not after September 11, 2001. The most hopeful development during that period for America was the civil rights movement, which dealt a series of legal and moral blows to racism. But "To Kill a Mockingbird," set in Maycomb, Alabama, in 1932, uses the realities of its time only as a backdrop for the portrait of a brave white liberal.

The movie has remained the favorite of many people. It is currently listed as the 29th best film of all time in a poll by the Internet Movie Database. Such polls are of questionable significance, but certainly the movie and the Harper Lee novel on which it is based have legions of admirers. It is being read by many Chicagoans as part of a city- wide initiative in book discussion. It is a beautifully-written book, but it should be used not as a record of how things are, or were, but of how we once liked to think of them.

The novel, which focuses on the coming of age of three young children, especially the tomboy Scout, gains strength from her point of view: It sees the good and evil of the world through the eyes of a six-year-old child. The movie shifts the emphasis to the character of her father, Atticus Finch, but from this new point of view doesn't see as much as an adult in that time and place should see.

Maycomb is evoked by director Robert Mulligan as a "tired old town" of dirt roads, picket fences, climbing vines, front porches held up by pillars of brick, rocking chairs, and Panama hats. Scout (Mary Badham) and her 10-year-old brother Jem (Philip Alford) live with their widowed father Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) and their black housekeeper Calpurnia (Estelle Evans). They make friends with a new neighbor named "Dill" Harris (John Megna), who wears glasses, speaks with an expanded vocabulary, is small for his age, and is said to be inspired by Harper Lee's childhood friend Truman Capote. Atticus goes off every morning to his law office downtown, and the children play through lazy hot days. Their imagination is much occupied by the Radley house, right down the street, which seems always dark, shaded and closed. Jem tells Dill that Mr. Radley keeps his son Boo chained to a bed in the house, and describes Boo breathlessly: "Judging from his tracks, he's about six and a half feet tall. He eats raw squirrels and all the cats he can catch. There's a long, jagged scar that runs all the way across his face. His teeth are yellow and rotten. His eyes are popped. And he drools most of the time." Of course the first detail reveals Jem has never seen Boo.

Into this peaceful calm drops a thunderbolt. Atticus is asked by the town judge to defend a black man named Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), who has been accused of raping a poor white girl named Mayella Violet Ewell (Collin Wilcox). White opinion is of course much against the black man, who is presumed guilty, and Mayelle's father Bob (James Anderson) pays an ominous call on Atticus, indirectly threatening his children. The children are also taunted at school, and get in fights; Atticus explains to them why he is defending a Negro, and warns them against using the word "nigger." The courtroom scenes are the most celebrated in the movie; they make it perfectly clear that Tom Robinson is innocent, that no rape occurred, that Maybelle came on to Robinson, that he tried to flee, that Bob Ewell beat his own daughter, and she lied about it out of shame for feeling attracted to a black man. Atticus' summation to the jury is one of Gregory Peck's great scenes, but of course the all-white jury finds Tom Robinson guilty anyway. The verdict is greeted by an uncanny quiet: No whoops of triumph from Bob Ewell, no cries of protests by the blacks in the courtroom gallery. The whites file out quickly, but the blacks remain and stand silently in honor of Atticus as he walks out a little later. Scout and her brother sat up with the blacks throughout the trial, and now a minister tells her: "Miss Jean Louise, stand up, your father's passin'."

The problem here, for me, is that the conviction of Tom Robinson is not the point of the scene, which looks right past him to focus on the nobility of Atticus Finch. I also wonder at the general lack of emotion in the courtroom, and the movie only grows more puzzling by what happens next. Atticus is told by the sheriff that while Tom Robinson was being taken for safekeeping to nearby Abbottsville, he broke loose and tried to run away. As Atticus repeats the story: "The deputy called out to him to stop. Tom didn't stop. He shot at him to wound him and missed his aim. Killed him. The deputy says Tom just ran like a crazy man."

That Scout could believe it happened just like this is credible. That Atticus Finch, an adult liberal resident of the Deep South in 1932, has no questions about this version is incredible. In 1962 it is possible that some (white) audiences would believe that Tom Robinson was accidentally killed while trying to escape, but in 2001 such stories are met with a weary cynicism.

The construction of the following scene is highly implausible. Atticus drives out to Tom Robinson's house to break the sad news to his widow, Helen. She is played by Kim Hamilton (who is not credited, and indeed has no speaking lines in a film that finds time for dialog by two superfluous white neighbors of the Finches). On the porch are several male friends and relatives. Bob Ewell, the vile father who beat his girl into lying, lurches out of the shadows and says to one of them, "Boy, go in the house and bring out Atticus Finch." One of the men does so, Ewell spits in Atticus's face, Atticus stares him down and drives away. The black people in this scene are not treated as characters, but as props, and kept entirely in long shot. The close-ups are reserved for the white hero and villain.

It may be that in 1932 the situation was such in Alabama that this white man, who the people on that porch had seen lie to convict Tom Robinson, could walk up to them alone after they had just learned he had been killed, call one of them "boy," and not be touched. If black fear of whites was that deep in those days, then the rest of the movie exists in a dream world.

The upbeat payoff involves Ewell's cowardly attack on Scout and Jem, and the sudden appearance of the mysterious Boo Radley (Robert Duvall, in his first screen performance), to save them. Ewell is found dead with a knife under his ribs. Boo materializes inside the Finch house, is identified by Scout as her savior, and they're soon sitting side by side on the front porch swing. The sheriff decides that no good would be served by accusing Boo of the death of Ewell. That would be like "killing a mockingbird," and we know from earlier in the film that you can shoot all the bluejays you want, but not mockingbirds -- because all they do is sing to bring music to the garden. Not exactly a description of the silent Boo Radley, but we get the point. This is a tricky note to end on, because it brings Boo Radley in literally from the wings as a distraction from the facts: An innocent black man was framed for a crime that never took place, he was convicted by a white jury in the face of overwhelming evidence, and he was shot dead in problematic circumstances. Now we are expected to feel good because the events got Boo out of the house. That Boo Radley killed Bob Ewell may be justice, but it is not parity. The sheriff says, "There's a black man dead for no reason, and now the man responsible for it is dead. Let the dead bury the dead this time." But I doubt that either Tom Robinson or Bob Ewell would want to be buried by the other.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is, as I said, a time capsule. 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.