STACK #178 Aug 2019

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ToKillA Mockingbird

Director Robert Mulligan and Gregory Peck on the set

Directed by Robert Mulligan 1962

The novel was originally brought to the attention of Universal Studios by Rock Hudson, who was keen to star in a film version. But it was turned down by the studio, probably as a polite way of saying they didn’t see Hudson as Atticus Finch. Soon after, Hollywood producer Alan J. Pakula and director Robert Mulligan, who had briefly teamed up in

H arper Lee’s 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird is a beautiful evocation of a place and time – a small Southern town in segregated Alabama during the Great Depression. The year is 1933 and widowed father Atticus Finch makes a modest living as a lawyer in the fictional town of Macomb, Alabama. He does his best to bring up his ten-year-old son Jem and six-year-old daughter Scout within a racially prejudiced community. The story of two summers and one fall in their lives is told from the point of view of the now adult Scout, who is remembering the events. Finch’s humane guidance whilst explaining the complicated issues of life to his children comes to the fore when he takes on the case of young African-American Tom Robinson – falsely accused of raping a white woman. Finch makes a dignified and plausible defence of the accused, all to no avail. Whilst the court’s decision exposes Southern small-town bigotry, Finch’s passionate defence teaches his children a lesson in moral courage. Harper Lee’s profound story was based on her firm belief that there were people in the South who could surmount the prejudice and bigotry that for decades had seemed to permeate all human life there, and stand by

1957 to make the baseball film Fear Strikes Out, became interested in Lee’s novel as another joint film production. They contacted Lee’s agent, who informed them that other filmmakers were also interested in the film rights. So determined were the pair that they

Fact: The novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and has since become a classic of modern American literature, translated into 40 languages and selling more than 40 million copies.

personally asked Miss Lee to withhold the sale until they could enter a bid, as they intended to offer the star role of Atticus Finch to Gregory Peck. She agreed and they immediately sent a copy to Peck asking him to read it. Peck sat up all night reading the novel and early the following morning he called Mulligan and said, “If you want me to play Atticus, when do I start?” Racially-themed movies were certainly not the surest subject for box-office success in 1960s America. As a consequence, Peck’s agent tried to talk the actor out of it, telling him, “Greg, you realise you will lose the entire South”. But Peck believed the very warm and telling story would find an appreciative audience and furthermore, Peck’s reaction to racial intolerance matched Atticus Finch’s perfectly. With a star in place and the film rights secured, Pakula and Mulligan’s first choice to write the screenplay was Miss Lee herself. But she was working on a new novel as well as caring for her ailing father in Monroeville, Alabama, and was reluctant to leave and come to work in Hollywood. Concerned about who would adapt her novel, she was much relieved

fundamental principles they believed to be just. Although Lee always maintained that her novel was not autobiographical, most of her characters were based on people she knew as a child. The narrator, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, is based on Lee herself and

Finch was her mother’s maiden name. Scout’s devoted father, the respected local attorney Atticus Finch, is a close version of Lee’s own widowed father A.C. Lee, who was a lawyer and state legislator. Likewise, Scout’s young delicate friend Dill Harris, who spent his summers living with his aunt next door to the Finch family, was modelled on Lee’s life-long friend – the novelist and writer Truman Capote.

The children – Jem Finch (Phillip Alford) Scout Finch (Mary Badham) and Dill Harris (John Megna)

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AUGUST 2019

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