"We weren’t setting out to change the world, to put an end to racial bigotry. . . . Our objective was to tell the story the way Harper wrote it. And hoped that it would entertain people, move people, and that they’d leave the theater with something to think about."
Mary Badham
Philip Alford
John Megna
Brock Peters
Robert Duvall
Frank Overton
Rosemary Murphy
Kim Stanley
Photography:
Black and white
Cinematography:
Russell Harlan, A.S.C.
Editing:
Aaron Stell, A.C.E.
Music By:
Elmer Bernstein
Production Company:
Brentwood Productions
Distributed By:
Universal Pictures
Release Date:
December 25, 1962 (United States)
Runtime:
129 minutes
Country:
United States
Language:
English
Budget:
$2 million
Box Office:
$13.1 million
To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1962 American coming-of-age legal drama crime film directed by Robert Mulligan. The screenplay by Horton Foote is based on Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name. The film stars Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Scout. It marked the film debut of Robert Duvall, William Windom and Alice Ghostley.
Why It Can Sing Hearts To Us
This film adaptation is an extremely rare case of an adaptation of an iconic novel being just as satisfying and beloved as said novel.
For context, Harper Lee's 1960 novel, despite being mostly autobiographical in detail, brought a poetic vision and quiet wit to a plot that was equal parts coming-of-age story and courtroom melodrama. In the novel, Atticus is called on to defend Tom Robinson, a black sharecropper accused of raping a white woman. Lee most likely based this on a 1933 incident in which the white Naomi Lowery accused the black Walter Lett of raping her. Most of the novel centers on three children (Scout, her older brother Jem, and Dill) and the way they viewed the Depression-era South. The novel was related from the six-year-old Scout's childlike simplicity and the mature Jean Louise's rueful nostalgia. These two points of views combined with their different styles gave the novel most of its emotional power.
On a related note, a lot of the main characters are based on people from Harper Lee's life, similar to her novel the film's based on.
Moral, upright lawyer Atticus Finch was based on Lee's father, A.C. Lee, a publisher, banker, and politician.
Tomboy Jean Louise/"Scout" was based on Harper Lee herself.
Dill, a next-door neighbor is based on Truman Capote, Lee's childhood friend.
Gregory Peck was an incredible casting choice for Atticus Finch, with the actor managing to capture his character's soft-spoken, ethical, caring nature and authenticity extremely well. Harper Lee herself stated that "the man and the part met", and Peck personally called Atticus his favorite role and the one closest to his own personality.
Despite most of the child actors' lack of experience, they manage to sell their roles incredibly well. This is especially the case for Mary Badham as Scout, whose chemistry with Peck with unmistakable. Their scenes together get to the heart of what Lee achieved as a novelist, a profound glimpse of love tinged with sorrow.
When casting for the other characters the casting crew aimed for new faces.
Robert Duvall got a part after the crew saw his work in his play The Midnight Caller. With not a single word of dialogue, he gives the audience a convincing sense of Boo as shy, awkward, reclusive, loving, and gentle, literally emerging from the shadows to begin a great screen career.
Scout and Jem's actors were cast after open auditions in Birmingham, Alabama. Mary Badham, nine at the time, had appeared on a single Twilight Zone episode, while Phillip Alford had even less experience.
John Megna, who played Dill, had been on the Broadway stage in All the Way Home.
The director rehearsed with the children for over a month to get them used to the presence of cameras.
The movie also reshaped the career of Brock Peters, cast as the accused Tom Robinson. Peters had been in plays and movies for over a decade but had difficulties finding roles that were not stereotypical heavies. This film finally gave him a chance to show his serious acting chops, and he went on to a long career.
Screenwriter Horton Foote's small town Texas background connected him with Harper Lee (who refused to work on an adaptation), and his experience as an actor in the 1940s helped make his dialogue seem realistic, even everyday.
The changes that were made for the film -- compressing the novel's time frame, removing several characters, and adding a potential love interest for Atticus -- surprisingly don't drag down the film, with some even working in the film's favor. Even if Mulligan worried that the film took attention away from the child characters, it doesn't harm the film and the story and message still get across.
Peck told his biographer Gary Fishgall that he practiced his climactic courtroom speech two- or three-hundred times. Although Mulligan cuts away twice to brief reaction shots, Peck delivered his speech in one take lasting almost seven minutes. Mulligan staged the speech so Peck would hit four marks, in effect changing the shot from a wide angle to a medium close-up and back without having to move the camera.
Incredible set design from Henry Bumstead that captures the realism and hopelessness of the era. More details on that in "Trivia"
Even before any characters are shown, the film manages to draw us into the secret, interior world of children, perfectly setting up the point of view of the story. In the main title sequence, designed and shot by Stephen Frankfurt, a cigar box is opened to reveal a child’s treasures: marbles, crayons, coins, a ticking pocket watch, tiny wooden dolls, and more. A child hums while starting to draw, and the camera explores all the items in greater detail while Elmer Bernstein’s lovely score kicks in with childlike simplicity.
Sinful Qualities
After Gregory Peck complained about the film spending too much on the children, and not enough time on Atticus, several scenes got deleted from the final film, including a scene Jem reads to a Mrs. Dubose. Due to this, the film can seem a bit bifurcated: part children's story, part Perry Mason episode.
Numerous critics stated that the courtroom scene showcased problems with the film/story. Atticus doesn’t use legal arguments to argue his client’s innocence, he uses his moral revulsion against racism to try to exonerate Tom Robinson. Emphasis on "try".
Not helping is Elmer Bernstein's overly emphatic score, which has the film take on an aura of piety that can be discomfiting.
Trivia
While the story’s fictional setting is set in Maycomb, Alabama -- where the author grew up -- the crew couldn't actually shoot there due to the area having become too modernized, so art director Henry Bumstead recreated it entirely on the Universal back lot. When he discovered that some houses in a Los Angeles suburb were due to be torn down to make room for a freeway—and happened to look perfect for the film—he arranged for them to be bought and reassembled at the studio. For the courtroom interior, he recreated the Monroe County Courthouse at full scale. Lee was utterly astonished at its realism when she visited the set.
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