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| Gregory Peck & Mary Badham in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) |
Was this blog's radio silence deafening to anyone other than me? Probably not, but as I crawl back into the blogging driver's seat, I admit I must get my barrings. A month away may be enough to shake off the cobwebs and shoo away the crickets, or could very well make me forget how to form a thought. Let's give this the ol' college try, shall we? Or for this one, should I say 'high school'? Because was there a high school freshman in America not required to read this book by Harper Lee, feverishly digging through its themes with distracted desperation?
As we breach the last quarter of films on our AFI Top 100 countdown, it's almost surprising that we're already hitting the (too high?) #25 selection, To Kill a Mockingbird. The poetically idealistic exploration of racial injustice in the Depression-era South isn't only for school consumption, and should be remembered by the masses for more than introducing us to America's Favorite Dad. Like its source, this film is a storybook, hazy and imbued with the memories of early childhood.
It's the summer of 1933, and our narrator Scout Finch remembers the time fondly, herself a young girl of six (played by Mary Badham). The Depression has hit the quiet, dusty town of Maycomb, Alabama, but watching Scout and her older brother, Jem (Phillip Alford), playing wistfully and without a care alongside their friend Dill (John Megna), you wouldn't know it. While Jem and Scout entertain Dill with scary stories about their reclusive neighbors, the Radleys, their father Atticus (Gregory Peck), a thoughtful widow and lawyer, becomes the subject of much anger when he agrees to defend Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), who has been falsely accused of rape. Over the next few years, as the charges fuel hatred and unmask the crippling racism ingrained in the white townspeople, Scout watches in wonder and reverence as Atticus fearlessly pursues justice for Tom during an emotional trial.