TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD ABOUT MOVIE

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). Into this peaceful calm drops a thunderbolt. And he drools most of the time.' Of course the first detail reveals Jem has never seen Boo. There's a long, jagged scar that runs all the way across his face. He eats raw squirrels and all the cats he can catch. 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. Their imagination is much occupied by the Radley house, right down the street, which seems always dark, shaded and closed. Atticus goes off every morning to his law office downtown, and the children play through lazy hot days. 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. 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).

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.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD ABOUT MOVIE

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. 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. 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. It is being read by many Chicagoans as part of a city-wide initiative in book discussion. 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 currently listed as the 29th best film of all time in a poll by the Internet Movie Database. The movie has remained the favorite of many people.

To kill a mockingbird about