Mary Badham should have won

Rating: 8/10 (20 April 2013)

I enjoyed reading dweck (An Unforgettable Drama, 9 December 1998) and sylviastel@aol.com (Please Don't Remake This Film!, 23 February 2008).
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is an acting showcase, where everyone who appears is very good. Three actors I have enjoyed from "Star Trek" and "Twilight Zone" and who fit into the landscape here are Paul Fix, Frank Overton and William Windom. Phillip Alford as Jem and John Megna as Dill are good children actors. James Anderson and Collin Wilcox Paxton as the Ewell father and daughter are both filled with spite. Brock Peters is convincing as the accused rapist. Robert Duvall makes a memorable appearance as Boo Radley very late in the show.
The two acting standouts are Gregory Peck as Atticus and Mary Badham as Scout. Peck immerses himself so thoroughly as Atticus that it is difficult imagining anyone else appearing here. Atticus is cinema's limit as the dignified and moral lawyer struggling to prevent mob rule from holding sway.
Mary Badham should have won the supporting Oscar she was nominated for. She has great depth and range for a child actor. (It is a pity her career was so limited.) The credit sequence is pretty interesting. Elmer Bertstein's music, with jazzy piano, is also well done.
The trial scenes are effective despite how easy it should be to defend a man accused of being a left-handed rapist who can't use his left arm at all.
The only weakness that 'Mockingbird' has is the direction. There isn't a single image from director Robert Mulligan that is uniquely memorable. He's competent but not elite. His Oscar nomination is difficult to understand.
'Mockingbird' is an important film for people to see today. Before Guantanamo Bay eviscerated it, America used to be a Constitutional Republic. In the 1960s there were many cultural references on behalf of the US legal system. While America continues to advance the use of illegal, extra-Constitutional star chambers (e.g., Guantanamo Bay), 'Mockingbird' shows us that it was once considered shocking for justice to be so clearly denied.