Simply put, this is a great detective film. Black Lucas Beauchamp (played by Juano Hernandez) is accused of murdering a white man, shooting him in the back. From the jail cell, He tells the town lawyer, John Gavin Stevens (played by David Brian) he didn't do it. So who did and how do they go about figuring who did it? A taut story line that works throughout the film despite the powerful subtext of Southern racism, where most citizens would just as soon lynch Lucas Beauchamp.
But John Stevens, Chick Mallison (as played by Claude Jaromon, Jr,) Miss Eunice Habersham (played by Elizabeth Patterson) and Aleck (played by Elzie Emanuel) persisted in doing what needed to be done, however nervous they might have been doing it. (Digging up a grave in 1949 was a serious crime, especially if a Black kid (Aleck/Elzie Emmanuel) was involved. But they persisted and endured.
It doesn't hurt that the film is an adaptation of a Faulkner Novel with the same title. Perhaps with black and white cinematography, you can't go wrong, and they certainly didn't. The tension of the mob scene--no Hollywood extras but native inhabitants of Oxford Mississippi (otherwise known as Yoknapatawpha County) played for reality and cinéma vérité. This film adaptation rightfully belongs in the realm of Classic.
While "To Kill a Mockingbird" seems a modern update of the story, the story still is as old as time it would appear. "There is a line between white and black--they can't see us and we don't want to see them." (A paraphrase.) That was true then, and it is still true today. When the Trumpster said "ObamaCare was a disaster" he meant "Obama was a disaster" and he was speaking to the David Duke (KKK) element of racist America that voted for the Trumpster.
The movie is available on YouTube and is certainly worth watching.
But John Stevens, Chick Mallison (as played by Claude Jaromon, Jr,) Miss Eunice Habersham (played by Elizabeth Patterson) and Aleck (played by Elzie Emanuel) persisted in doing what needed to be done, however nervous they might have been doing it. (Digging up a grave in 1949 was a serious crime, especially if a Black kid (Aleck/Elzie Emmanuel) was involved. But they persisted and endured.
It doesn't hurt that the film is an adaptation of a Faulkner Novel with the same title. Perhaps with black and white cinematography, you can't go wrong, and they certainly didn't. The tension of the mob scene--no Hollywood extras but native inhabitants of Oxford Mississippi (otherwise known as Yoknapatawpha County) played for reality and cinéma vérité. This film adaptation rightfully belongs in the realm of Classic.
While "To Kill a Mockingbird" seems a modern update of the story, the story still is as old as time it would appear. "There is a line between white and black--they can't see us and we don't want to see them." (A paraphrase.) That was true then, and it is still true today. When the Trumpster said "ObamaCare was a disaster" he meant "Obama was a disaster" and he was speaking to the David Duke (KKK) element of racist America that voted for the Trumpster.
The movie is available on YouTube and is certainly worth watching.