LOOK Magazine’s Original Review of
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Published February 26, 1963 (pp. 84-87)
(NOTE: original review contains four photos with captions)
To make a movie out of a world-favorite book is a heavy responsibility.
Everyone involved in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird has done his
job with love and skill. This Universal-International film is, like the book,
a magical masterpiece. It relates the story of a tomboy nicknamed Scout,
growing up in an Alabama town, “where there’s no hurry, for there’s nowhere
to go.” But, as in a child’s world, marvelous, unexpected things happen
just the same. Like Scout, we watch her quiet, widowed father
(Gregory Peck, in his best role in years) become a rare hero as he attacks
dangers that can destroy everybody’s peace: a mad dog on the loose,
and racial prejudice that boils over into another kind of madness.
The book’s rape trial is shown intact
Ordered by their father to stay home on the day of the trial, Atticus Finch’s
children go secretly to the courthouse anyway, determined not to “miss
the most excitin’ thing that ever happened in this town.” The trial is also
one of the most exciting things that ever happened in a movie. A Negro
farmhand, Tom Robinson, is accused of “taking advantage of” a white girl.
As the trial develops, lawyer Finch reveals that the accuser, a lonely,
back-country girl, actually made a sexual pass at the accused. Discovered
on the spot, she was beaten by her father, who then cynically pinned the
“unspeakable crime” on Tom.
The truth doesn’t matter to the jury: the accused is pronounced guilty. But
not before some of the most eloquent words ever uttered in a film for the
basic right of Negroes are said by Finch, in defense of “this quiet, respectable
Negro who had had to put his word against two white people.” The tragedy
of this trial is so profound that audiences may feel like heeding a Negro preacher
who tells Atticus’ children to “stand up–your father is passing,” as Atticus Finch,
a brave white man who defended a black, walks out of the courtroom, defeated.
