Oprah Movie Club Pick for March: To Kill a Mockingbird

1962 classic based on classic literature

Rating: 18/20 (Jen: 15/20; Emma: 14/20; Abbey: 11/20)

Plot: A young girl gets a concussion while rolling down the street in a tire, and while in a coma, dreams of a dark world where unimaginably terrible things happen.

I don't like that Gregory Peck is so prominently featured on every single poster for this. I mean, this is really about the kids, isn't it? It's a story about mischievous meddling scallywags who trespass, run around without pants, trick their father into shooting slow-moving rabid dogs, insult poor people, harass neighbors, etc. Gregory Peck's character isn't winning any father-of-the-year awards, by the way. What father is going to let his children walk home at ten o'clock at night, especially when he knows there are drunkards who don't really like him roaming the neighborhood. And especially when your children have problems losing their clothing and might have to come home dressed as ham. That's a strange scene because you know something terrible is about to happen because you've read the book or seen the movie and the music is suggesting that something bad is about to happen, but then you have Scout wearing a ham costume. What kind of play was that anyway? I can only imagine, in a farming community like where this movie takes place, that it was a play called I Ham What I Ham, a story of a bunch of pigs having a good time rolling around in the mud or engaging in orgies or pig piles (as they call them) or hopping on trampolines and most definitely eating a lot until one day Babs the pig turns up missing but life for the pigs goes on as usual until a chunk of Babs (played here by Scout) returns to the farm to warn them all that they are being fattened to later be butchered and eaten. It's probably a Holocaust allegory, and if there's a movie version, we'll make that April's Oprah Movie Club pick. And what kind of father is Gregory Peck if he didn't even go see his kids' performance in I Ham What I Ham? He loves black people but he doesn't care for Jews? That or he just knew it would be a bad play because a bunch of children were putting it on, and he didn't think he could endure a bad play. I've been there, Gregory Peck! I'm usually forced to go because of my wife. "They're your children, Shane! You have to go!" I guess that's one of the benefits of having your wife die. Right, Gregory Peck?

For me, here are the scenes that stand out in this:

--Gregory Peck's closing arguments, naturally. Abbey, for whatever reason, interrupted them to ask why they were even in the movie. But if Peck's performance is any good at all (and it might be a little overrated), this is the shining moment of the performance.
--The tiny scene where Gregory Peck takes his children to the black people's house and while Scout is sleeping, a black kid walks up to the car and makes eye contact with Jem. It's a quiet moment, but I think it's really important, and Philip Alford (Jem), like he does in a lot of this movie, plays it perfectly. I can't decide if I wanted to see more of the black children in this or not. Maybe this lone scene is enough.
--Brock Peters' testimony as Tom. Tom the accused is very very briefly scene before the trial, almost like he's not important. Then, he's seen but mostly silent during the trial. He does catch a glass which might date this film a little bit since the movie seems to be implying that all black people are good at catching things. And then, he gives his tearful testimony which is just powerful stuff. Brock Peters is so great here, almost as good as he is doing the voice work as Lazzor, the oldest of the Woolies, in that Samurai Jack episode.
--Boo Radley hiding in a shadow behind a door. That's Robert Duvall in his first credited film role. According to legend, he had a few lines ("And I was a-hungry, so I just thought, 'Well, I'll take a little bit o' that ham,' but then I seen that boy was being hit. . .") but couldn't say any of them without giggling and farting. So they made him more of a silent crazy person instead.
--Gregory Peck leaving he courtroom after losing the trial. That "Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing" is so perfect.
--The tense scene in front of the jail. Those gray cars approaching. Gregory Peck reading under a lamp he lugged from home. Jem's refusal to leave. Shadows. Dill's corny badger-toothed expression. Scout's one-sided conversation with the farmer whose kid she kept beating up.
--The opening credits with the great music and the contents of that box.
--Every shot of the wind pushing that porch swing. I'm a sucker for shots of swinging porch swings, especially if they're in black and white.

I'm pretty sure Scout could take me in a fight, by the way. Hey, did you know the name of the person who played Scout? She didn't have much of an acting career. Mary Badham. Bad ham? Coincidence? Phillip Alford wasn't in much either--a few television movies and Shenandoah. I wonder if he saw Jimmy Stewart running in that movie and thought, "I'll never reach that kind of perfection, so I should probably just forget this acting career!" after seeing that. (There's a very good chance that I am the only person who thinks that last sentence is funny and that it even irritated one of my blog readers. At least he knows I'm just being goofy by now.)

To Kill a Mockingbird is Jen's favorite book. She says the book is so much better. Discuss.

I think I could do without the narration in this. It's a coming-of-age story, and a lot of them do have a narrator reflecting on it all as a flashback. At least old Scout's narration is intermittent. As a coming-of-age story, it's a little strange because the father can't quite keep his children from racism or prejudice or the idea that there really isn't any justice in the world, but there's no happy solution and we don't get to see how the epiphany changes the kids or if it does at all. Dogs die, people are poor, the titular birds are killed, an all-white jury convicts a black man who's obviously innocent, and dads are too old to play football. That's maybe the saddest thing about this whole movie, by the way. Gregory Peck can't play football. Jem, like all boys that age, thinks his father can do anything, but he finds out just how impotent his father is when facing something as big and monstrous as prejudice. Philip Alford's discouraged look after the verdict is read (another scene the kid nails) says it all. "My dad can't play football, and he can't even win a case where the witnesses for the prosecution are claiming a guy with essentially one arm choked a woman."

I like the music in this and either didn't know or didn't remember that it was Elmer Bernstein. I really like the scratchy experiment section when Jem finds the dolls in the knothole. Bernstein, in case you didn't know, also composed the music for the bonafide classic Robot Monster.

I think there are probably movies that tackle the issues this tackles in more profound ways, but I like that this isn't really preachy at all and shows everything from the perspective of the kids. To me, this has less to do with the racial tensions of the time and the heartbreaks associated with those and more to do with the ways that children find out about really bad things in the world. And although there's nothing revolutionary about the way this story is told--director Robert Mulligan takes absolutely no chances here, although I do like the editing and camera angles in that courtroom scene--there's something poetic about the movie's simple style that I think fits it perfectly. Sometimes, it's just feels more appropriate to address extremely complex issues in very simple and quiet ways.

So there's your Oprah Movie Club pick for March. If you have an idea for April, you can leave it in the comments.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention: I think "bustin' up a chifferobe" should have become a euphemism for a sex act. It will certainly become one in my house!