Review of To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) by Mark D — 05 Dec 2010

I believe this is the first time I rate a black and white movie five stars. Major theme of the movie is racism, a court trial against a black man with no other evidence than prejudice, who gets convicted by a white and biased jury anyway and killed on the run. If this would have been the whole movie I wouldn't have rated it five stars. The entire story is wonderfully embedded in the adventures of the two kids of lawyer Atticus (Gregory Peck), Scout and Jem. They have beliefs and fears of their own - for instance, they are scared of Boo, who's kept in a neighboring house, but who's never seen and only communicates with little toys in a hole in the tree. In fact "To Kill a Mockingbird" is short for "It's a sin to kill a mockingbird, because he never does anyone harm and only brings joy to the people through its singing." The movie shows what you are allowed to kill: the lawyer shoots a mad dog as soon as he sees it's becoming a threat (I'm curious what the animal rights movement nowadays would say about this scene). The black convict on the other hand was kind of a mockingbird: he wasn't guilty, though the jury thought otherwise, and he got shot on the run. The main (drunk) racist in town later attacks the children of the lawyer, but they get rescued by a tall, silent (retarded) young man, who turns out to be Boo. The racist redneck got killed by his own knife and the sheriff thinks it best to consider it to be suicide. Scout then explains to her father why Boo couldn't be taken to trial: he's another sort of mockingbird.

I'm rather surprised, by the way, that kid actress Scout (Mary Badham) never had much of an acting career after this debut.