To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

In this article, we will be looking at 2019’s book “1001 Movies to See Before You Die” and going through each film in a random order that I have chosen. We will be looking at what constitutes this film to be on the list and whether I think this film deserves to be here at all. I want to make perfectly clear that I won’t be revealing details from this book such as analyses by film reporters who have written about the film in question, so if you want the book itself you’ll have to buy it. But I will be covering the book’s suggestions on which films should be your top priority. I wouldn’t doubt for a second that everyone reading this article has probably watched many of these movies anyway. But we are just here to have a bit of fun. We’re going to not just look at whether it should be on this list but we’re also going to look at why the film has such a legacy at all. Remember, this is the 2019 version of the book and so, films like “Joker” will not be featured in this book and any film that came out in 2020 (and if we get there, in 2021). So strap in and if you have your own suggestions then don’t hesitate to email me using the address in my bio. Let’s get on with it then.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) dir. by Robert Mulligan

“To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962) is a film directed by Robert Mulligan, written by Horton Foote and based on the best-selling novel of absolute brilliance by the late, great Harper Lee. Starring Gregory Peck in the role of the heroic Atticus Finch and Mary Badham in the role of the young, rebellious ‘Scout’.

It has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with a critics’ consensus that 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.”

Bosley Crowther weighed in on the argument as well and gave this movie a stellar review when it first came out. Here is what he had to say:

“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 neighbour, Brock Peters as the [African-American] 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.”

But, Roger Ebert was less likely to state something incredibly positive. Instead he saw the movie as something very ‘white saviour’ based and though it was ‘innocent’ it does not a lot for the actual race relations of America as a movie:

“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, recognises 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 realises 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.”

I have to disagree a little bit with Roger Ebert here because the film is based on the book and so, if he has a problem with the movie and its events then he should probably have taken that up with Harper Lee instead of Robert Mulligan for the movie. Also, I loved the movie and book so I cannot deny that there is some white-saviour complexes but we have to understand the small town situation. Everyone would know each other, everyone would know the political stance of each other and are more likely to listen to the daughter of a figure who is well-respected and progressive in the community than they are, oh say, the Boo Radley - especially at the time in the movie/book that Ebert is referencing.

After all, Walt Disney said this about the film and how can you deny that if Walt Disney says this then your movie has done its job: "That was one hell of a picture. That's the kind of film I wish I could make."