Editorial Review:Amazon.com essential video:Ranked 34 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Films,
To Kill a Mockingbird is quite simply one of the finest family-oriented dramas ever made. A beautiful and deeply affecting adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee, the film retains a timeless quality that transcends its historically dated subject matter (racism in the Depression-era South) and remains powerfully resonant in present-day America with its advocacy of tolerance, justice, integrity, and loving, responsible parenthood. It's tempting to call this an important 'message' movie that should be required viewing for children and adults alike, but this riveting courtroom drama is anything but stodgy or pedantic. As Atticus Finch, the small-town Alabama lawyer and widower father of two, Gregory Peck gives one of his finest performances with his impassioned defense of a black man (Brock Peters) wrongfully accused of the rape and assault of a young white woman. While his children, Scout (Mary Badham) and Jem (Philip Alford), learn the realities of racial prejudice and irrational hatred, they also learn to overcome their fear of the unknown as personified by their mysterious, mostly unseen neighbor Boo Radley (Robert Duvall, in his brilliant, almost completely nonverbal screen debut). What emerges from this evocative, exquisitely filmed drama is a pure distillation of the themes of Harper Lee's enduring novel, a showcase for some of the finest American acting ever assembled in one film, and a rare quality of humanitarian artistry (including Horton Foote's splendid screenplay and Elmer Bernstein's outstanding score) that seems all but lost in the chaotic morass of modern cinema.
--Jeff Shannon
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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A Movie for its time, but not All-Time...
A movie that is just plain well-acted. The ensemble supports Mr. Gregory Peck as if his life depended on it. Mr. Brock Peters becomes more than the average mongrel can stand: an innocent man of a shade other than pink, and justice won't be served because of the mongrels. But criticizing this film would be like shooting a mockingbird, wouldn't it? This is another dumbed-down attempt at looking at the mongrel world from a bystander's perspective.
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To Kill a Mockingbird
I had seen this movie many years ago and now that I have a copy for my collection I am very pleased. This is a terrific movie and it is as effective today as it was when it first came out. I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys a beautiful story that has a beautiful meaning along with a wonderful story line and absolutely GREAT acting.
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To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird (Universal Legacy Series)
Such a great classic! Every person needs a copy of this movie. It's well written, well acted and of course the debut of the great Robert Duvall. I love classic movies and books. This one is worth the price.
JLS/Georgia
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very good
I Bought This Movei for My Grandaughter, She Loves The Book And The film
Regards!!Mr Michael Del Priore
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Top Ten classic
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is a powerful, hugely well-acted film that should be on everyone's Top Ten and should be in every film collection. The book took me for a ride as a child, one of those rare books we were made to read in school that I could not put down; the film, with exemplary performances by Gregory Peck, Mary Badham and Brock Peters, is a searing treatise on social mores of the time and it still speaks to us today. We have not come all that far from the era portrayed in the film, and it should be shown in schools; it is that good.
Scout (Mary Badham), a precocious child, runs pretty much unchecked through the small Southern town in which she is raised, tolerated by the townsfolk because her father is Atticus Finch, a well-respected attorney; and really, she is looked upon with affection by most, who feel sorry for her because her mother died. She only has time to ruminate on that occasionally, as she and her older brother Jem, and a visiting boy there for the summer, get into all sorts of adventures against the backdrop of her father's preparing to defend a local black man on trial for the alleged rape of a young white woman. There are those in town who can smell a frame clearly enough, but this is the South, and a charge brought by a white against a black is going to have dismally predictable results. Atticus, who knows his client is innocent, forges ahead anyway, facing down intimidation and threats to his children, and building up the film to a crescendo of an ending. The ending of the movie - and scattered references throughout the film - introduced us, also, to Robert Duvall, as he just began his film career; and though his part is small, it is wrenchingly powerful.
The highest recommendation possible. Everyone should own this movie, in whatever form you can get it.
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