Review – To Kill a Mockingbird

Classic novel becomes classic movie, telling the tale of a small southern town beset by a Scottsboro-esque racial incident. Gregory Peck heads a cast of then-unknowns, including a really young Robert Duvall as the mysterious Boo Radley. Though the message is sometimes a bit heavy handed and the script occasionally a bit self-indulgent when it comes to literary affectations (such as the awkward incorporation of the title into the plot), in general the limited mawkishness is more than offset by the child’s-eye view of society’s petty prejudices and hatreds. Worth seeing