To Kill A Mockingbird (film) - Plot

Plot

The film's young protagonists, Jean Louise "Scout" Finch (Mary Badham) and her brother Jem (Phillip Alford), live in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the 1930s. The story covers three years, during which Scout and Jem undergo changes in their lives. They begin as innocent children, who spend their days happily playing games with each other and spying on Arthur "Boo" Radley (Robert Duvall), who has not been seen for many years by anybody as a result of never leaving his house and about whom many wicked rumors circulate. Their father, Atticus (Gregory Peck), is a town lawyer and has a strong belief that all people are to be treated fairly, to turn the other cheek, and to stand for what you believe. He also allows his children to call him by his first name. Through their father's work as a lawyer, Scout and Jem begin to learn of the racism and evil prevalent in their town, and mature painfully and quickly as they are exposed to it.

The kids follow Atticus to watch a rape trial, in which an innocent black man, Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), is wrongfully found guilty of raping Mayella Ewell, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Among Atticus' chief arguments, he points out that Tom is crippled in his left arm, and that the supposed rapist would have had to make extensive use of his left hand to have carried out the crime as it was being described by the teenage "victim" and her father. Atticus also brings to light the alarmingly unusual and suspicious fact that the girl had not even been examined by a doctor to check for signs of rape after the supposed assault. Atticus earnestly pleas to the jury for them to cast aside their prejudices against blacks and instead to focus on the evidence of Tom's obvious innocence. Tom is doomed, however, when he takes the stand in his own defense and reveals that he felt pity for the victim due to her circumstances.

Atticus arrives home to find out that Tom has been killed in an attempt to escape from jail. Atticus is subsequently vilified by some of the locals for his having defended a black man, and the whole town is in quite a stir over the matter for a good while. After a few months, things appear to have settled down, and Scout goes to an Autumn Harvest pageant with Jem; she portrays a ham in the pageant. On their way home that night, Scout and Jem are attacked by the vengeful Bob Ewell, the drunkard father (and the real assailant) of the girl whom Tom Robinson had been falsely accused of molesting. Mr. Ewell slashes at Scout with a knife, but the chicken-wire framework of her pageant costume protects her from the blade. During the struggle, Jem is knocked unconscious and his arm is broken. But then Bob Ewell is overpowered and killed by a tall dark figure who suddenly appears on the scene. Scout sees the whole thing from a small view hole in her ham costume, which she is still wearing.

Jem is carried home by this mysterious man, who turns out to be the previously mentioned Arthur "Boo" Radley. Afterwards it is revealed that Boo — in caring appreciation for Scout's and Jem's not having taunted and shunned him the way other townspeople had done — had for a long time assumed the role of the children's guardian angel, often secretly watching over and following a distance behind Scout and Jem when they were out at night, to help them and protect them from harm. The film ends with Scout considering the past three years' events from Boo's point of view, and with Atticus watching over the sleeping Jem.