Celebrate the Drive-In: Day of the Triffids

Celebrate the Drive-In is a tribute to a beloved venue of the past. During it's heyday, a trip to the drive-in was one of my favorite things, both on the rare occasions as a child, and in my early adulthood. This blog is going to celebrate Drive-In Day (Jun 6) with a series of movies that I was too young to see (or in a couple of cases, not even born yet) that I wish I could've experienced in a drive-in. Keep coming back for the entire week as there will be one per day for the duration.

Some days it just doesn't pay to get up and water the plants! Presenting the next Coming Attraction! Day of the Triffids! 

 

 

 

The theme of alien invaders is a trope that crops up time and again in science fiction. What would science fiction be without an alien or two? You would be limited to Back to the Future, The Terminator or some other time travel movie, or dystopian science fiction films like Blade Runner or Soylent Green or Logan's Run. None of which are even remotely bad films, but still, you would miss out on such classics as The Day the Earth Stood Still and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. If you were to list your own favorite science fiction movies, I would be willing to bet that at least 50% of them had some sort of alien beings in them.

In my own list of the top science fiction films of all time (according to my account on FlickChart) no less than 7 of the top 10 have some sort of alien coming into play over the course of the film. Only Escape from New York and RoboCop (a dytsopian future film) and The Final Countdown (a time travel movie) have no aliens present. (Terminator 2:Judgement Day, which comes in at #11, also has no aliens). It's safe to say that the science fiction world would probably not exist if aliens had not been a factor in the beginning.

So, if aliens are one of the most predominant factors in science fiction, it makes it important that at least some of the aliens have something different to make them stand out against the crowd. One of the more interesting alien invasions, based on a novel by Jack Finney, had the aliens come to earth as seed pods and gradually replace the human race with exact duplicates. The Body Snatchers has been done at least 4 times in film, first in 1956, with remakes of the same story in 1978, 1993 and most recently in 2007.

In a similar vein, John Wyndham wrote The Day of the Triffids. The triffids were a new species of plant that had come to Earth via a previous meteorite storm. They were animated later, through the after effects of a another meteor shower. Although I guess you couldn't put any intelligence into those spores, quite possibly it could be inferred that was an "alien invasion", since the spores do come from outer space. But then, who is to say both of those events weren't engineered by an advanced race trying to prepare the way for an invasion... something to think about. (That idea is just my own thoughts, the movie doesn't expose any nefarious plans...)

   

 

 

Day of the Triffids (1962):

The film begins as our narrator (voiced by Peter Dynely, whose voice you may recognize from the TV cartoon Thunderbirds) intones sonorously:

"In nature's scheme of things, there are certain plants which are carnivorous, or eating plants. The Venus Fly Trap is one of the best known of these plants. A fly drawn to the plant by its sweet syrup, brushes against triggered bristles. Just how these plants digest their pray has yet to be explained. There is much still to learn about these fascinating eating plants. This is a newcomer: Triffidus Celestus, brought to earth on the meteorite during the Day of the Triffids!"

 

There is a freak occurrence of a meteorite storm of unprecedented proportions coming to Earth. But no big deal, at this point, as our narrator tells us:

"All reports confirm that the world is witnessing an unprecedented shower of meteorites. There is no record of a display such as this in recorded history. At observatories astronomers are noting this fantastic phenomenon, and are carefully calculating the effect on our solar system. The consensus of option is that the meteorites burn up from the intense heat before they reach the Earth."

(BTW, if you have ever witnessed one of those meteorite storms that occasionally streak across the night sky you may conclude that this one HELL of a "freak occurrence". Those things are really coming in close...) 

Apparently the only person in the whole world who is not able to see the meteorite storm is Bill Masen (Howard Keel), who has had the unfortunate timing of having had to go through a recent eye surgery, and his eyes are currently bandaged up. And the killjoy of a doctor insists that he wait until the full 10 days required for waiting go by before removing the bandages, which won't happen for another 8 hours. (Killjoy!)

 

In a remote lighthouse we also have a pair of married marine biologists, Tom and Karen Goodwin (Kieron Moore and Janette Scott). These two are also unable to watch the meteor storm, not because their eyes are bandaged up, however. They're too busy working. Or at least Karen is. Tom seems more interested in getting drunk. 

 

The first indication of something strange happening is when a night watchman at the Botanical Gardens is attacked and killed. (Why does the botanical Gardens need a night watchman? Hell, I don't know... Except SOMEBODY has to be the first victim...)

 

The next morning, at the hospital, Masen wakes up to find out it is an hour later than when he was promised to have his bandages removed, with no one around. So he removes the bandages himself. What he finds is a hospital in shambles and apparently no one on the premises. But eventually he finds his doctor, who is now blind. It is revealed that everyone who had watched the meteorite storm has been inflicted with blindness. 

Not only that but there is a strange plant that has figured out how to become mobile, uprooting itself from the ground, moving about and attacking humans. A radio announcer tells anyone "if you are blind it is urged that you stay indoors..." (Thanks for the warning). Masen gets out of the hospital and wanders the streets of London where everyone he sees is walking around blind. 

 

 

He rescues a little girl, Susan (Janina Faye), apparently one of the few people that can actually still see. She was accosted by a disreputable character against her will, but given the fact that he is one of the many who are blind, it is apparent he only wanted her to help him (but he could have asked first...) Masen takes Susan with him to his ship, where he was an officer on board. But no one is there. But via the radio they find that chaos is in effect nearly everywhere.

 

 

Between the pair stranded on the lighthouse island and the pair motoring around London trying to find a place where some semblance of normality may still exist, the sighted people find not much hope. Those triffids are on the move. (And, I realize there is a whole mess of them around, but those things are pretty slow, so it doesn't seem like it would be all that hard to stay out of their reach, since they can see where they are...)

 

Eventually Masen and Susan come across some others who can see.  These are a couple and another person who had (coincidentally, or conveniently, depending on your perspective) collided with each other in a car wreck and were under sedation when the meteorite storm hit. Everyone who can still see had the same set of circumstances happen; they were otherwise unable to see the meteors, which is why most of the rest of the world is now blind.  (Question... weren't at least some people in bed asleep as part of their normal routine? Where are THOSE people?)

 

The survivors that Masen and Susan find are running a sort of refuge and have a contingent of blind people they are helping. But the threat of the triffids threatens to overwhelm them. These things are plants, after all, and in the way it is with all plant life, it has ways of regenerating itself. Eventually, some of the survivors think that safety is only by making it's way to a naval base. (Of course, in the tradition of everything threatening life in the free world, the military is THE answer...)

 

Spoiler Alert! If you want to watch this movie stop now and come back to it after watching it.

 

Ultimately, however, the answer is much simpler, as is discovered by our two refugees on the lighthouse island. The key to defeating the triffids turns out to be something which the Earth has a very high concentration. Salt water, or sea water.

 

"A simple method had been found to destroy the triffids. Sea water, from which life on Earth had sprung, became the means of preserving life on Earth. Mankind survived and once again have reason to give thanks." 

 

One of the more interesting tidbits I read is: the entire subplot sequences involving the marine biologist couple was sort of an afterthought. After getting the film ready, the production crew found that the running time of the finished movie would only last about an hour. They needed more. (Credit is due to Bill Cram at Screenage Wasteland for this tidbit. I found his review after I wrote most of this review, and I found it  quite interesting.)  The solution that comes to the biologists seems to alter whatever the trajectory the film would have had without them. Which makes me wonder... if it hadn't been for them would the film had had a happy ending? The novel did end a bit differently, with only a hope for triumph, rather than an actual triumph.

The Day of the Triffids suffers from the same unbelievability that the mobile rocks did in The Monolith Monsters, if you ask me. But like that other film, the story that surrounds it, as well as the lead actors playing their roles, make the whole thing tons better than you would expect. The film suffers quite a bit on special effects, although not really for the triffids; they look pretty effective and gruesome. The real problem is that a lot of the matte paintings look just like what they are, matte paintings. And a plane crash that occurs early in the movie looks entirely like what is is, a model plane crashing into miniature buildings.

The Day of the Triffids currently holds a 79% Fresh rating, and I am not sure how well it did at the box office. It had a budget of a little over $1 million, and probably most of that went to making the mobile plants look decent. Only Howard Duff was a big name in the feature. I didn't find any contemporary reviews, but one I found on Variety website said "A simple method had been found to destroy the Triffids. Sea water, from which life on Earth had sprung, became the means of preserving life on Earth. Mankind survived and once again have reason to give thanks." (They also had a comment that I liked: "Basically, this is a vegetarian’s version of The Birds..." I wonder whether any vegetarians would be so quick as to advocate a plant-based diet after watching this film...😆)  

While I don't think The Day of the Triffids holds up as well for someone who has seen many other creature features that followed in it's footsteps, I think it is a very effective film. 

Until next time, drive safely folks. And maybe forgo that short cut through the woods... Come back tomorrow for Coffy!

Quiggy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrate the Drive-In Week: The Born Losers

Celebrate the Drive-In is a tribute to a beloved venue of the past. During it's heyday, a trip to the drive-in was one of my favorite things, both on the rare occasions as a child, and in my early adulthood. This blog is going to celebrate Drive-In Day (Jun 6) with a series of movies that I was too young to see (or in a couple of cases, not even born yet) that I wish I could've experienced in a drive-in. Keep coming back for the entire week as there will be one per day for the duration.

 

It's a bad day when you wake up and a band of outlaw bikers are creating havoc in your home town. Presenting the next Coming Attraction! The Born Losers!

 

 

The legend of Billy Jack may not be readily apparent if you were born after about 1980. The Tom Laughlin created character of Billy Jack first appeared in The Born Losers, but his cache of appeal wasn't readily apparent until the sequel, Billy Jack. It was then that the character became something of a counterculture hero.  But even in the first outing for Billy Jack, the reluctant fighter for the rights of the downtrodden comes out.

According to history, Tom Laughlin and his wife, Delores Foster, came up with the story of Billy Jack back in the 1950's. The story that the pair wanted to tell was of an outcast veteran who used his skills to help young people from a corrupt system. (Essentially the plot of Billy Jack, except, I guess, the "veteran" was a WWII veteran at the time.) 

But Laughlin and Foster couldn't find any reputable studio willing to take a gamble. The 50's establishment in Hollywood, still operating under the repressive censorship established by Joseph Breen and the Hays code were unwilling to touch that particular keg of dynamite. But by the time the late 60's rolled around, with America dealing with much larger issues like campus unrest and a war that almost nobody wanted to continue, the doors became open a little wider.

The pair decided to take a new slant on the theme to begin with, however. As one reviewer I read says they decided to try to "ease in" and make the first film more commercially palatable. (Not sure if the end result was all that much "easier" to swallow than the first idea, but then, you can't argue that they didn't make it more "commercial"...) For one thing, our hero is now a disillusioned veteran of that less than popular war in Vietnam.

Laughlin had a new co-writer for this script, his eventual co-star in the film, Elizabeth James. The script they hashed out is based loosely on a real event. A band of Hell's Angels motorcycle club had gotten into trouble in the early 60's. Two members of the gang had been arrested in Monterrey, California for the rape of two teenage girls. In that incident, much like the story behind the film, the charges were dropped due to a lack of concrete evidence. (Whether or not that was because the motorcycle gang intimidated people in the real life incident is not mentioned in the article I read, as it was in part of the film).

The film company that produced The Born Losers was American International Pictures, which had a history of producing counterculture biker movies, but they had problems with this one, some of which had to do with financial oversights in the production, but also because the company had a difficult relationship with Laughlin, who insisted on creative control and conflicted with the studio's bottom line of "get it made and get it made cheap". So the three sequels were instead made under a different company.

  

 

The Born Losers (1967):

A biker gang, The Born Losers, headed by Danny (Jeremy Slate), have been terrorizing the small town of Big Rock. When a local accidentally bumps into one of the bikes with his car, the bikers beat the crap out of him. 

 

None of the locals have the guts to step in, but Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin), a loner ex-Green Beret who happens to be in town steps in. The bikers end up being arrested, but they also arrest Billy Jack, whose only crime apparently was doing the job the police SHOULD have done.

 

The bikers get off with basically a slap on the wrist, but the judge slaps Billy Jack with a heavy fine. As a result he has to sell his jeep to come up with the money, otherwise spend some time in jail. Billy Jack has had some dealings before with Danny. (Not sure, since it's never actually stated, but I think either they were in high school together or possibly they both served time in the Vietnam War).

 

The bikers figure they have the  upper hand in town, and as a result they eventually rape a couple of the town girls. Devastated by the actions as they are, the girls refuse the pleas to testify against the biker gang. The D.A. (Paul Bruce) and the Sheriff (Stewart Lancaster) are frustrated by this, of course, but the bikers' intimidation tactics are very thorough. They convince the girls and their families that it would be better for their safety to just lay low, or maybe even leave town. 

The coming of a new girl in town, Vicki (Elizabeth James), is a new twist on the bikers however. She, too, is a victim of the illicit sexual tactics of the band of outlaws. When the D.A. tries to approach her she seems willing to help, but only if the authorities can guarantee her safety. Unfortunately the authorities cannot convince her she would be completely safe. But maybe Billy Jack can.

 

 

Initially Billy Jack is only trying to confront the gang because they raided his mobile home and stole his stash of money he had hidden there (Billy Jack doesn't trust banks... and there is a trope that always bugs me.  Why do these loners always mistrust banks?) Billy Jack confronts the gang and demands they return his money, and that apparently is his only motivation. But in the process he develops a little bit of care for the downtrodden Vicki, a foreshadowing of the character he becomes in the sequels. The character gradually becomes a hero of sorts defending the underdog. The fact that a peace loving individual resorts to violence in order to promote peace was a source of consternation among some critics, but the character of Billy Jack gradually comes to be the kind of antihero that not only found a following in the 60's and 70's but even finds a following in today's society.

A couple of familiar faces show up during this movie. Jack Starrett, who plays the deputy, will be familiar as the sadistic deputy who gets on Rambo's wrong side in the first First Blood film.

Starrett as the Deputy

Starrett in First Blood 

 

And Robert Tessier, who may be familiar from The Longest Yard and Breakhart Pass made his film debut here, as Cueball (albeit before he shaved his head...) 

 

Tessier as Cueball

Tessier in The Longest Yard

Tessier in Breakhart Pass

 
Also appearing in a brief role is pin-up icon Jane Russell as the mother of one of the victims.

 

The film was a modest success, financially.  It went over budget as far as AIP was concerned, but even so, with a cost of $2 million to produce it managed to pull in over $35 million at the box office. It was not particularly well received by the critics. Many of them, like Leonard Maltin,  citing the aforementioned criticism of using violence to promote an anti-violence message. Bosley Crowther, in his review, also said it was "difficult to have empathy for the victimized youngsters after seeing them half-naked in beachwear, coyly edging up to the cyclists".

The Born Losers is a tough movie to watch if you are remotely sensitive to any objectifying of women, even if the message of the film is that that objectifying on the part of the cyclists is not acceptable (as opposed to some of the typical drive-in movies of the day which tried to make titillation a rite of passage of young men of the day). One of the most difficult parts of the film is when one of the girls who were victims says that she and the other girls wanted to be a part of the gangs' activities, and thus were not "raped".

While I like The Born Losers as an introduction to a character that I really liked in the sequel, Billy Jack, I would submit that this may not be a movie for all people. If you found Easy Rider a difficult movie to like, you probably will be turning off The Born Losers before Billy Jack ever begins to show he's got a pair. But if you can get over the stark images that the movie presents, it is worth a look. Fortunately the movie shies away from actually showing the sexual aspect (except for a few scenes with the girls wearing bikinis, there is not that is much overtly titillating in the film).

That wraps up today's movie. Drive safely, folks. Don't hit any motorcyclists while backing out. Come back tomorrow for Day of the Triffids!

Quiggy

 

Celebrate the Drive-In Week: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad

Celebrate the Drive-In is a tribute to a beloved venue of the past. During it's heyday, a trip to the drive-in was one of my favorite things, both on the rare occasions as a child, and in my early adulthood. This blog is going to celebrate Drive-In Day (Jun 6) with a series of movies that I was too young to see (or in a couple of cases, not even born yet) that I wish I could've experienced in a drive-in. Keep coming back for the entire week as there will be one per day for the duration.

 

Don't you just hate it when a magician shrinks your fiancee to the size of a GI Joe doll? Presenting the next Coming Attraction! The 7th Voyage of Sinbad!

 

A few years ago I covered a couple of movies featuring an adventurer named Sinbad (no relation to the African American comedian...), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. Both of those I was fortunate enough to have seen at a drive-in theater when I was still in my teens. As I related in the review (and you can follow the link if you want to read the whole thing yourself), the story of Sinbad and his adventures captivated me. A lot of that had to do with the stop-motion special effects of Ray Harryhausen.

Those films came out in the 70's. But those were not the first pairing of Sinbad the Sailor with the special effects expertise of Ray Harryhausen. (And actually there was an even earlier film, Sinbad the Sailor from 1947, with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr in the title role, but that was just a "plain Jane" swords and sandals pirate melodrama, lacking the monsters that populated the Harryhausen films). The best Sinbad movies were these later epics which added some fantastic creatures for the pirate to battle.

Sinbad had his origins in classic literature, specifically a book called One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. They were originally published in English in the early 1700's, but the history dates even before then. The collection was of stories and legends that had been collected Middle Eastern folktales circa the 8th to the 13th century. 

The story behind the collection of tales, if you are not familiar, focuses on a girl in a sultan's harem. The sultan would have sex with a girl in his harem and then have her executed the next morning. Scheherezade, one his girls, told stories to the sultan each night, always leaving a cliffhanger at the end of the night, thus postponing her execution. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and the tale of Aladdin were two of these stories, and you have probably heard of several others. 

Sinbad was a hero that ended up having seven classic voyages, although none of the classic films were actually directly based on the print stories. Instead, the films were more or less original tales inspired by the adventures of the literary character. I suggest you find a good copy of the book and read some of those stories however. They are entertaining in their own right. Sir Richard Burton (the British adventurer from the 1800's, not the actor) has the best version.  

 

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958): 

The film opens as Sinbad (Kerwin Mathews) and his crew are sailing to Baghdad. They have been looking for a place to resupply their ship, as they have apparently run out of food. Sinbad, the heir apparent to the Caliph of Baghdad, is on his way back with the princess of Chandra, Parisa (Kathryn Grant). The imminent marriage between the two serves two purposes; one they are truly in love, but also a marriage between the two will be able to stave off a war between the two countries.

 

They  make landfall on the island of Colossa, where they encounter a giant Cyclops, as well as a magician who has been stranded there, with his magic lamp. The magician, Sokurah (Torin Thatcher), has some incredible magical powers, plus he has the genie in the lamp (Richard Eyer), but seems to be unable to get off the island by himself...

 

Cyclops

 

Sokurah

Genie

As Sinbad, Sokurah and his crew try to make their escape, Sokurah loses the lamp, which is recovered by the Cyclops. When Sinbad finally gets to Baghdad, Sokurah does everything he can think of to try to get the Caliph, Sinbad's father (Alec Mango), to authorize and finance a trip back to Colossa to get the lamp again. Not all of his efforts are above board... He finally uses some of that (seemingly) elusive  magic that he is capable of to shrink the princess to the size of a porcelain doll. 

 

 

Then he manages to convince the Caliph that some other magic has caused it, but that he, Sokurah, can reverse the spell. The only thing is, he needs a part of the shell from an egg of a roc, and that creature can only be found on...wait for it....Colossa.

 

 

Due to the fact that most of Sinbad's crew is not willing to go back with him to Colossa, he has to get a crew of prisoners from the local jail. And you can see what's coming. That crew of reprobates is not interested in fulfilling their mission, probably because they know if they succeed they'll just be back in prison when they get back. So they mutiny. But forces beyond their control end up with them back on Colossa anyway.

On the island Sinbad and company divide forces. One group of them find the Cyclops' stashed treasure trove, and of course, lose track of the original mission. While they are overcome by the greed inspired by their discovery, the Cyclops captures some of them, including Sinbad. It is up to the miniature Parisa to help free them, and at one point she enters the lamp and meets the young boy who is the genie. The genie only wants one thing in life, to be free from the curse of imprisonment in the lamp. Parisa promises to help. (It's a sure bet Sokurah isn't going to be so magnanimous...)

Since Sinbad holds all the cards (read: the lamp), he has the necessary motivation to get Sokurah to reverse the curse. But Sokurah is not going to go so gentle into that good night. He kidnaps the princess and takes her to his cave, which is guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. The genie helps Sinbad get by the dragon, and confronts Sokurah, making him follow through with the promise to reverse the curse. 

 

 

Ultimately there is a battle between the Cyclops and the dragon, and wonder of wonder, the good guys end up winning. (Did you expect it to end any other way?) 

 

And Parisa follows through on her promise to help the genie escape his bondage. 

 

Throughout the film there are several scenes that involve other Harryhausen creations. In one, Sokurah turns one of Parisa's handmaidens into a serpent woman.

Serpent woman

 

In another, Sinbad does battle with a skeleton (which might be confused with a similar battle in Jason and the Argonauts, although in that movie it was an entire contingent of skeletons).  

 

The 7th Voyage skeleton

Jason vs. the skeletons

 

 

 

 

 

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is one of those rare movies that garners a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Most critics agree that it is the best of the Sinbad movies. Roger Ebert, although not a reviewer at the time it came out (he was still in high school), reminisces in an article that it was one of his favorites. It made a fairly decent profit, managing to get a little over $3 million in tickets sales against a budget of only $650 thousand.  

You can't go wrong watching any of the movies that Ray Harryhausen was involved in, whether it be the Sinbad movies or Jason and the Argonauts, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers or even Valley of the Gwangi . Like I say, the stop motion animation that he helped advance may seem quaint to people who grew up on CGI, but I can't name one movie in Harryhausen's oeuvre that is not worth watching multiple times. 

It's hard to believe he was never nominated for an Oscar, although he did get an honorary award in 1992. How he was passed over for a even a nomination nod for the 1981 film, Clash of the Titans, is a mystery, although he probably would have ended up losing to Raiders of the Lost Ark, since that film was one of the darlings at the Academy Awards that year... Especially effective, visually, was his Medusa. 

 

 

Realizing after writing this review that Harryhausen has been neglected in my 10 year span of writing, I am going to start posting a few more movies of his over the next few months. Just gotta find the time.  I have a LOT of projects going on at this time. But since I am retired, there is no excuse of "I gotta work"... 

See you next time, folks. Drive safely. And don't pick up any suspicious looking magicians... Come back tomorrow for The Born Losers!

Quiggy

 

 

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #22: To Kill a Mockingbird

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

 

Week #22: Alabama -

 

 

The state of Alabama was established on December 14, 1819. 

 

Details about Alabama:

State bird: yellowhammer

State flower: southern long leaf pine

State tree: camellia

Additional historical trivia:

Rosa Parks became one of the icons of the civil rights movement when she refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery. 

Although celebrating Mardi Gras is most associated with New Orleans, the first Mardi Gras celebration in the U.S. happened in Mobile in 1703.

In 1836 Alabama became the first state to declare Christmas a holiday.

Without the Saturn V rocket, the moon landing doesn't happen. It was developed in Huntsville.

The oldest baseball stadium that is still in use is located in Birmingham.

Birmingham is the site of one of the most specialized bookstores in the world. The Alabama Booksmith only sells books that have been signed by the authors. (But, no, apparently they do not currently have a copy of the novel that inspired today's movie...)

Famous people born in Alabama: Harper Lee, Rosa Parks, Jim Nabors, Courtney Cox, Hank Williams, Nat King Cole,  Helen Keller, Jesse Owens, Hank Aaron and  Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

 

 

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962): 

The film begins in the quiet town of Maycomb, Alabama. "Scout" Finch (Mary Badham) and her brother, Jem (Phillip Alford), await their father, Atticus (Gregory Peck), to come home. In the meantime they meet a neighbor kid, Charles Baker Harris (John Megna). The three have a great rapport (such innocence as children had, and maybe still have, for all I know).

 

The children teach other little things about the neighbors and townspeople, including some of those rumors that often develop among children, such as the highly "dangerous" neighbor, Boo Radley, whom no one ever sees because he is supposedly chained up in the basement and only comes out at night. And Mrs. Dubose, a crotchety old woman next door, who antagonizes the children with somewhat veiled threats of what they will end up becoming when they grow up. Both of these characters are kind of like the boogeyman for the children, because after all, a part of growing up requires that children have some sort of boogeyman to be afraid of, whether or not such boogeymen really are worthy of that fear. 

In the background (as yet not the foreground) is the local judge coming to Atticus to try to get him to be the defense lawyer for a local black man who has been accused of rape of a white woman. In another world, the real world at the time, in other words, the black man probably would have already been lynched, without a trial. But then if that happened we would have no story.

 

Atticus is a proud man who has conscience and a ideal of doing what is right. As he tells Scout who asks why he is defending Tom:

“If I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.” 

 

Whether or not he initially believes in the innocence of his client at the beginning is not important. What matters is that Atticus is adamant that Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) be given a fair shake and a fair trial, and not just convicted by the prevailing crowd without said trial. There is a lynch mob that shows up midway through the film with that exact intention... This not being a Perry Mason mystery, we don't get a lot of investigation into the facts of the story. What comes out of the truth of the actual story is only played out during the trial.

 

The trial itself seems a little unbelievable. Not the facts that come out, mind you, but the lack of a crowd reaction to Atticus' questions posed to the witnesses. I kept expecting outrage from someone in the crowd, but instead the only reactions come from whomever is on the witness stand at the time. The most difficult part of this is there is no reaction to Atticus' basic accusations: a) that Tom is being railroaded and b) that the victim, Mayella (Collin Wilcox), was more or less the instigator not the victim. I would have expected a riot or at least someone trying to shout down Atticus at this point.

 

Of course, you may or may not know how the trial came out. In an effort to play fair, I will thus say spoiler alert! Tom is convicted of the crime, this despite the fact that Atticus pretty much exposed the whole thing as a lie on the part of Mayella and her father. The upshot is that Tom is carted off to prison, but is supposedly shot while trying to escape. (I will interject an opinion here: While the "escape" and "shooting" may have been accepted as plausible by the 60's audience, the cynic in me says that may not be how it really played out. Yet the film seems to want us to accept the story as told by the sheriff).  

There is still a bit of story left, including a revelation of who the mysterious Boo Radley (Robert Duvall) is. Hint: he is NOT the boogeyman. (And, although he never utters a word, Duvall made enough of an impression in his first film role that his one scene is fairly memorable). 

 

Although the film is primarily about Atticus and his efforts to defend a black man, Tom, in the rape trial, there are also some aspects of it that dwell on the lifestyle of a small town, and the film is sometimes a love letter to a more idyllic time. Sure, the racism aspect stands out in stark contrast against the backdrop, but some of the scenes come off a bit elegiac. Especially early on in the film.  The point of the film, and the novel it was based on, was, of course, to focus on the racial prejudices of the era. 

(A side note: One of my pet peeves is when a book or a movie is banned or criticized for pointing out what was historically accurate. The book, along with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has been targeted in recent years for banning, simply because black people are referred to as "niggers", as they are also in the film. It seems that the current PC crowd want to erase the fact that at one time there was an inequality between the white and black people. While I don't think it was a fair way to treat a fellow man, I also don't believe in trying to censor a part of history just because we are supposed to be more enlightened now).

To Kill a Mockingbird was nominated for 8 Oscars. In a different year it might have won more than the three it did win. It had the misfortune of competing for Best Picture that year with Lawrence of Arabia (the winner), as well as The Longest Day and The Music Man. (Mutiny on the Bounty was also a candidate, but personally I prefer the Clark Gable and the Mel Gibson versions). It also lost Best Director to David Lean for the aforementioned Lawrence of Arabia. Mary Badham was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress but lost to Patty Duke for The Miracle Worker. It did win in the category of Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, both times beating out the Lawrence film.

It was the 6th highest grossing film of the year (although, technically, most of it's ticket sales probably came in 1963. It was released on Christmas Day of 1962). It was a critical success, too.  It currently holds a 93% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and among it's advocates was Bosley Crowther who praised the "charming enactments of a father and his children in that close relationship, which can occur at only one brief period"and that that part of it was "worth all the footage of the film". Even in today's age it still gets it's share of praise. 

A couple of things worth pointing out as a wrap-up: The narration of the film is done by Kim Stanley, who in 1982 was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. James Earl Jones was one of the actors that auditioned for the role that eventually went to Brock Peters. Peters, BTW, had another connection to Jones; while Jones was the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars films,  it was Peters who did the voice on the radio versions of the stories. 

It is a worthy film. It ranks #34 on A.F.I.'s 100 Greatest Films.  Check it out if you haven't already seen it. Until next time, drive safely, folks.

Quiggy