Rating: 
Summary: Still the best
Review: Harper Lee's novel warmed my heart, but I never thought a movie could be made that stuck to the story as well and also explained a bit more about the mother, who passed away. When Robert Mulligan and Horton Foote promised Ms. Lee they wouldn't change her novel, they did as they promised. The casting is perfect, Mr. Peck is the perfect person to portray Atticus Finch and why I believed lawyers were for actually for the innocent. Phillip Alford and Mary Badham were simply very normal, energetic southern kids who play their parts to a "T". The children learn that the world doesn't necessarily revolve around them, but tosses itself at the them, whether or not they're ready. What they perceive as mundane, isn't! What they fear their entire lives turns out to be what saves them from another evil from which they have to escape. Great and scary and moving and I can't say enough, but what a great movie. No real violence and cursing on screen, and the "N" word used only to demonstrate the ignorance and stupidity of certain characters. I was thirteen, Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan and could see it for free; I surely did, over and over. Now, I've viewed it with my ten and eleven year old grandchildren and what an experience that was. You won't find another movie to sit and watch with the family that leaves your heart warm to the very core and makes it easier to look out at the dark and not feel so scared. Thank you Mr. Peck, and Harper Lee. Absolutely great!.
Rating:
Summary: Magical and heartwarming -- As good as the book
Review: It's rare that a movie is made that can capture the moods and feelings created in the book that it's based on. Considering the success of the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, producing a movie to match would seem like an impossible task. However, Gregory Peck is perfect as Atticus Finch, turning out one of the best performances I have ever seen. The children are right on character and the movie is just enchanting. I would highly recommend this movie to anyone, especially if you read and loved the book.
Rating:
Summary: One Of The Best Dramas Ever Filmed!
Review: I first saw this wonderful movie after rushing out to buy the novel to read before the movie finally came out later in the summer. I was just a teenager still in high school, but immediately loved the movie, which I have seen countless times since. Gregory Peck is probably the single greatest reason for the movie's smashing success, although the entire cast does a terrific job in bringing this momentous story to the screen. In today's complex world one tends to lose perspective as to how explosive, provocative, and sensational the issues of cross-race rape was in the early 1960s when the movie hit the screens. Yet despite the sizzling if subdued sexual content and the divisive issues surrounding the movie, it quickly became the movie of the year, winning Peck the Oscar for his incredible portrayal of rural southern lawyer Atticus Finch. No doubt it is the character of Atticus Finch who deserves most of the credit for the novel's enduring popularity. Seldom has such a quietly heroic figure been so favorably and memorably described in such loving detail in an American novel as is fortyish Atticus Finch, the highly principled and somewhat befuddled widower-lawyer trying his level best to raise his two young children alone in the midst of the deep South during the early years of the Depression. As daughter Scout remembers, there was little that Atticus couldn't charm or talk his way out of. And, as played by Gregory Peck, this thoughtful, moral, and courageous man became a model of modern American manhood for all who read or watched his story unfold. Of course, the other characters are also lovingly and carefully drawn and described, and the way in which the importance and relevance of the mockingbird parable is sown into the web of the story at a number of different levels with a number of different characters is also one of the enduring treasures found within the pages of this book. Whether considering Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, Scout, Jem, or Atticus himself, we all come to better understand the ways in which all the individuals' stories and fate are intricately and inextricably interwoven with each other and into the fabric of a particular time and place. Indeed, we watch with growing affection as Atticus increasingly relies and depends on their black governess, and are amazed by the degree to which he is concerned for her welfare as well. On the other hand, we watch as Bob Ewell acts despicably to mistreat people of color. There are volumes of wisdom herein regarding the treatment of human beings and the problems associated with trying to live in any particular place at any specific time. So well and accurately drawn are the characters of this fable of the life and times of Scout Finch in "To Kill A Mockingbird", that one can only hope it continues to be widely seen and appreciated as a modern American classic.
Rating:
Summary: An American film classic
Review: I think most people reading the reviews for To Kill a Mockingbird have already seen this classic film and/or read the novel. Suffice it to say, there is little need to indulge in any lengthy film synopsis other than to say that this film represents one of but a handful of times when a film truly captures the essence and warmth of the novel on which it is based. Though I only saw this film once as a child, its memory stuck in my mind for a long time, and when I heard that the film had been released on DVD, I quickly purchased a copy. My memories did not betray me, for this is just as enchanting and moving a film as I remembered it to be. Furthermore, the DVD transfer is excellent. The picture quality is sparkling and the sound is crystal clear. Plus, there is a good commentary track and very in-depth cast and bio notes. However, the best extra is the documentary "Fearful Symmetry." Unlike most documentary nowadays, which tend to focus on self-propaganda and promotion and special effects, this long (practically feature-length!) documentary uses the film as a starting point from which to discuss the background era in which the film is set; it focuses on real people and real locales which find their parallel in the movie. In sort, this is quite a remarkable documentary and is, in my opinion, the best one I've seen on any DVD by a long shot. So, you already know how great this film is and how great Gregory Peck is in it. This DVD does the film justice, and I applaud Universal for producing such a high-quality DVD. A 5 star effort all the way!
Rating:
Summary: Stupid Film
Review: This Film Stunk, that is why I give this film 5 thumbs up.
Rating:
Summary: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Review: I READ THE BOOK WHEN I WAS 13 AND SAW THE MOVIE A FEW YEARS LATER AND WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED. GREGORY PECK IS WONDERFUL IN THIS MOVIE AND I COULD BELIEVE HE WAS ATTICUS FINCH. THE TWO CHILDREN ARE ALSO SO VERY GOOD. IT IS A MOVIE I WILL HAVE MY CHILDREN WATCH AND HOPEFULLY MY CHILDREN'S CHILDREN. EVEN THOUGH ITS AN OLD MOVIE THE THEME IS SO VERY REVELANT TODAY.
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Summary: Who colorized "Mockingbird"? Not Amazon.com.
Review: After searching video stores in Southern California, I finally found a non-colorized version of "Mockingbird" at Amazon.com. What idiot colorized a movie deliberately filmed in black-and-white! I'm so grateful that Amazon.com had it in the original black-and-white and I really enjoyed the interviews and behind-the-scenes information at the end of the video, including a very rare photo of Harper Lee.
Rating:
Summary: An American classic classically rended in DVD
Review: The film, truly an American classic and, for my money, one of the 10 best American films ever made, is splendidly rendered here with a mint-condition print. The DVD also offers a superb mix of additional features, most especially the remarkable documentary on the film, "Fearful Symmetry," by Charles Kiselyak, and compelling yet unassuming commentary by the director, Robert Mulligan, and the producer, the late Alan J. Pakula. Besides interviews with Mulligan and Pakula, the documentary includes interviews with the actors who play the children, Mary Badham as Scout and Phillip Alford as Jem, as well as with the screen writer, Horton Foote, and the composer, Elmer Bernstein. The documentary also includes interviews with several residents of Monroeville, Ala., the real Macon, to round out a sense of "Macon" then and now. Among the revelations in the commentary is that production designer Henry Bumstead (Vertigo) masterfully recreated the children's neighborhood on the Universal backlot using houses that would have been demolished by the construction of a freeway. The main titles, by Stephen Frankfurt, with Bernstein's theme, manage brilliantly to capture not only the essense of the film but an essence of childhood, about which both Harper Lee's timeless only published novel and the film itself are very much about. Only later do we discover the nature of that blend of innocence and experience alluded to in the William Blake poem from which Kiselyak takes the title of his documentary. My only regret is that Harper Lee, though she helped Kiselyak in producing the documetnary, declined to be interviewed for it. In its stead, however, we have another evocation, that of Ms. Lee's voice in the rich tone of nostalgia and reminiscence with which Kiselyak infuses his own small but mighty masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Quiet Integrity
Review: Summer in Macon. "To Kill a Mockingbird" opens with narration, straight from the source novel, because only the novel would do, and at once we're catapulted into the small-town South at the trough of the Depression. Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) has to defend a black man unjustly accused of raping a white girl, and along the way he has to fend off a lynching party; such were those times. Mostly the movie is told from the point of view of Atticus' two children, Scout and Jem, and their gradual moral awakening that life in their little town is not always a matter of please-and-thank-you. This is a deliberate movie, almost courtly in the way it unfolds, and I only hope that it holds the attention spans of today's MTV generation. To me, the languid pace seems perfectly at home with small towns, summer heat, southern courtliness, and Gregory Peck's quiet integrity as an actor and his tendency to slightly underplay a scene. Look for a very young Robert Duvall as "Boo" Radley. Elmer Bernstein's musical score is a treat of Americana.
Rating:
Summary: Favorite all-time film
Review: I can't add anything that hasn't been said already, except that I have loved this movie since I was a child. Growing up in Mississippi with a widowed lawyer for a father, the whole story is very close to my heart. As a youngster, I could relate to the scenes with the three children and their fascination with Boo. The scenes at the Radley house used to really scare me. As I grew older, I understood more of the 'adult' message of the film about prejudice and began to love and appreciate it on a different level. The Bernstein score has always given me goosebumps; it is so perfect for the story and provides a haunting atmosphere of innocence and poignance that captures the entire aura of Lee's work. All the acting is superb. This really is a case of Hollywood surpassing itself in adapting a classic work of fiction for the screen. Having seen the movie numerous times before reading the book, I must say I prefer the movie, although the book fills in a lot more background on the characters. Anyone who has never seen this film really owe it to themselves to watch it!
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