To Kill a Mockingbird

With great sensitivity and thanks to Gregory Peck in the lead role, director Robert Mulligan finds his own cinematic equivalent for the unique tone of Harper Lee's novel.

A hot summer in Alabama during the Depression: Together with housekeeper Calpurnia (Estelle Evans), widower Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) raises his two children Scout (Mary Badham) and Jem (Phillip Alford). Atticus is a lawyer in the small town of Maycomb and is appointed public defender for black labourer Tom Robinson (Brock Peters). He is accused of raping the daughter of farmer Bob Ewell (James Anderson). While the town's white majority has already passed judgement, Atticus fights for a fair trial. Although he tries to shield Scott and Jem from the escalating events, the omnipresent racism also penetrates their sheltered childhood world.

Like Harper Lee's original, the film is consistently told from the perspective of the two children. With the atmospheric black and white images, Mulligan makes the heated mood in the southern states literally palpable and lets it collide with the innocent childhood idyll. Thanks to Peck's Oscar-winning performance, Atticus Finch became the personified father figure of Hollywood cinema, but without simply catering to the "white saviour" stereotype. No one triumphs at the end of the film. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD as one of the 25 best American films of all time. We show the classic film from a rare 35 mm archive print.