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From: Gary
Date: 22 May 2000
Time: 09:38:11
To Kill A Mockingbird is a fantastic transfer to DVD. Originally released in the US in December 1962. It is so clear and crisp one could almost assume it is a modern film purposely done in Black and White for artistic effect ( ex. Schindler’s List, Manhattan, Raging Bull, Young Frankenstein etc. ). I am becoming a HUGE Gregory Peck fan as well… The Boys From Brazil, Moby Dick and The Omen would all rate highly on my personal list. The story is well thought out and the “atmosphere” of the movie may its best attribute. It takes no time at all to be mentally adrift in this Georgia small town. The musical score is not intrusive to the plot. Only one thing hold me back from a perfect rating and I can’t even articulate what it is. Something about the ending was very slightly weak… I think Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning book of 1960 showed the relationship between Boo Radley and the kids in more detail.
Through the eyes of "Scout," a feisty six-year-old tomboy, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD carries us on an odyssey through the fires of prejudice and injustice in 1932 Alabama. Presenting her tale first as a sweetly lulling reminiscence of events from her childhood, the narrator draws us near with stories of daring neighborhood exploits by she, her brother "Jem," and their friend "Dill." Peopled with a cast of eccentrics, Macomb ("a tired and sleepy town") finds itself the venue of the trial of Tom Robinson, a young black man falsely accused of raping an ignorant white woman. Atticus Finch, Scout and Jem's widowed father and a deeply principled man, is appointed to defend Tom for whom a guilty verdict from an all-white jury is a foregone conclusion. Juxtaposed against the story of the trial is the childrens' hit and run relationship with Boo Radley, a shut-in who the children and Dill's Aunt Stephanie suspect of insanity and who no one has seen in recent history. Cigar-box treasures, found in the knot hole of a tree near the ramshackle Radley house, temper the children's judgement of Boo. "You never know someone," Atticus tells Scout, "until you step inside their skin and walk around a little." But fear keeps them at a distance until one night, in streetlight and shadows, the children confront an evil born of ignorance and blind hatred and must somehow find their way home.
4 ½ stars out of 5
Gary