Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel
was translated to film in 1962 by Horton Foote and the producer/director team
of Robert Mulligan and Alan J. Pakula. Set a small Alabama town in the 1930s,
the story focuses on scrupulously honest, highly respected lawyer Atticus
Finch, magnificently embodied by Gregory Peck. Finch puts his career on the
line when he agrees to represent Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), a black man
accused of rape. The trial and the events surrounding it are seen through the
eyes of Finch's six-year-old daughter Scout (Mary Badham). While Robinson's
trial gives the film its momentum, there are plenty of anecdotal occurrences
before and after the court date: Scout's ever-strengthening bond with older
brother Jem (Philip Alford), her friendship with precocious young Dill Harris
(a character based on Lee's childhood chum Truman Capote and played by John
Megna), her father's no-nonsense reactions to such life-and-death crises as a
rampaging mad dog, and especially Scout's reactions to, and relationship with,
Boo Radley (Robert Duvall in his movie debut), the reclusive "village
idiot" who turns out to be her salvation when she is attacked by a
venomous bigot. To Kill a Mockingbird won Academy Awards for Best Actor (Peck),
Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Art Direction. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi