To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Limited Edition (1962)

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To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Limited Edition (1962)

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The story takes place during three years of the Great Depression in the fictional "tired old town" of Maycomb, Alabama. It focuses on six-year-old Scout Finch, who lives with her older brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt each summer. The three children are terrified of, and fascinated by, their neighbor, the reclusive "Boo" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo and, for many years, few have seen him. The children feed each other's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. Following two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times, the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, never appears in person.

IMDB: Rating 8.5/10

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To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Limited Edition (1962)

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Atticus is appointed by the court to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom to the best of his ability. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus' actions, calling him a "nigger-lover". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting, even though he has told her not to. For his part, Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame the mob into dispersing by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's points of view.

Because Atticus does not want them to be present at Tom Robinson's trial, Scout, Jem, and Dill watch in secret from the colored balcony. Atticus establishes that the accusers—Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell, the town drunk—are lying. It also becomes clear that the friendless Mayella was making sexual advances towards Tom and her father caught her and beat her badly. Despite significant evidence of Tom's innocence, the jury convicts him. Jem's faith in justice is badly shaken, as is Atticus', when a hopeless Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.

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Humiliated by the trial, Bob Ewell vows revenge. He spits in Atticus' face on the street, tries to break into the presiding judge's house, and menaces Tom Robinson's widow. Finally, he attacks the defenseless Jem and Scout as they walk home on a dark night from the school Halloween pageant. Jem's arm is broken in the struggle, but amid the confusion, someone comes to the children's rescue. The mysterious man carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley.

Maycomb's sheriff arrives and discovers that Bob Ewell has been killed in the struggle. The sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence and ethics of holding Jem or Boo responsible. Atticus eventually accepts the sheriff's story that Ewell simply fell on his own knife. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and after she says goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears again. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective and regrets that they never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.

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To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Limited Edition (1962)

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Video Quality
Scuttlebutt has it the world may be ending in 2012, and there may be further signs of an impending apocalypse, at least for some ardent film fans, with the news that Universal, long the bane of catalog title collectors, seems to have finally woken up and realized how to treat its asset treasures. Now, I have never believed that at least some of Universal's catalog Blu- ray releases were as outright terrible as some claimed, but I seem to have a much higher tolerance for DNR than some. (On the other hand, edge enhancement and haloing drive me a bit crazy.) To Kill a Mockingbird is presented on Blu-ray with a VC-1 encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1 (and, yes, you read that right: VC-1). The film is part of Universal's well publicized 100th Anniversary promotional push to revisit many of its storied films, restoring and remastering them for home video release (not all of these legendary films will receive Blu-ray releases, unfortunately). This new Blu-ray has been sourced from high res scans of original 35mm source elements and the results are simply gorgeous. The clarity and precision of the image is breathtaking at times, with beautifully modulated gray scale, deep, rich blacks and piercing, though never blooming, whites. Though the film and all of the supplements are on a BD-50, perhaps because the supplements (save for the restoration featurette) are in SD, and there are absolutely no compression artifacts to report. The restoration featurette, which actually covers a lot of titles, actually spends a few seconds discussing one aspect of Universal's high def releases which seem to create the biggest controversy: digital noise reduction of grain. In the case of To Kill a Mockingbird, there were a number of optical push ins (as opposed to zooms) which magnified grain to a really ugly degree, something shown quite clearly in the restoration featurette. Rather than "erase" the grain, which the team of restorers quite clearly state is unthinkable, they used a new algorithm which "averaged" the grain over the entire sequence, including before and after the optical push. The results should please even the most persnickety videophiles. Several scenes which have been murky in previous home video releases, especially the final climactic Halloween segment, have whole new levels of shadow detail on this new Blu-ray. Well done, Universal—keep it up.

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Audio Quality
To Kill a Mockingbird offers both a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix as well as a standard DTS 2.0 mix. This would not seem to be a film especially suited to a surround track, and the good news is the track hasn't been overly "tarted up" to provide a false sense of immersion. The best part of the 5.1 track is the fuller representation of Elmer Bernstein's glorious score, one of the finest scores of the composer's long and legendary career. (I'm on record as having stated that Bronislau Kaper was robbed of an Oscar for his 1962 Mutiny on the Bounty, but Bernstein's To Kill a Mockingbird certainly gave him—and eventual winner Maurice Jarre for Lawrence of Arabia—stiff competition). Ambient sounds occasionally dot the surrounds (the rustle of leaves in that final horrifying Halloween sequence is a notable example), but the mixers have wisely kept things largely front and center, as they should be. Fidelity is excellent and the soundtrack bears no noticeable signs of age related damage. There is just very slight boxiness to some of the stems, including Kim Stanley's voice over narration, but it's not very distracting.

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Special Features and Extras
All of the supplements from the Legacy Edition 2 DVD set have been ported over to this release, with the exception of the cardstock reproductions of the international lobby cards (some of which are reproduced in this Blu-ray's accompanying Digibook text):

Fearful Symmetry (SD; 1:30:13). This feature length documentary is by Charles Kiselyak, and is a loving if unshrinking look back on the cultural milieu from which To Kill a Mockingbird sprang. There are copious interviews with several participants in the film, including Gregory Peck, the kids, as well as Mulligan and Pakula. The documentary also gets into some really interesting, if somewhat tangential, subjects like the importance of oral history in the American South.

A Conversation with Gregory Peck (SD; 1:37:37) is another fantastic, feature length documentary which first finds the actor doing a personal appearance in Boston, answering questions from the audience. The film then follows Peck on a number of exploits with various family members, as he reminisces about his long and storied career. Some other audience participation interview segments are also included in this really beautifully done piece.

- Academy Award Best Actor Acceptance Speech (SD; 1:31) is a model for all the longwinded, self-important award accepters nowadays.
- American Film Institute Life Achievement Award (SD; 10:01) is a snippet from Peck's AFI tribute, including a wonderful speech by the actor.
- Excerpt from Tribute to Gregory Peck (SD; 10:09) is from a special Academy tribute to Peck, including Peck's four children.
- Scout Remembers (SD; 12:01) is a fun piece featuring Mary Badham remembering her experiences on the film.
- Feature Commentary with Director Robert Mulligan and Producer Alan Pakula is incredibly informative, though Pakula can be a little hard to hear at times. The two, who were partners for such a long time, have an easy rapport with each other, and Pakula coaxes a lot of anecdotes out of Mulligan. Highly enjoyable.
- Theatrical Trailer (SD; 2:52)
- 100 Years of Universal: Restoring the Classics (HD; 9:13) is a promo piece touting Universal's 100th anniversary and their restoration and preservation efforts. The new slate of restorations is covered briefly, including some looks at the restoration efforts. Universal releases are regularly pilloried for over aggressive DNR, and there's a very interesting segment on this featurette addressing that issue that all DNR-phobes really should watch.
- U Control offers Cecilia and Anthony Peck narrating different PiP snippets which offer a number of participants like Robert Mulligan, Horton Foote, Mary Badham and Phillip Alford.

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To Kill a Mockingbird Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
I'm not ashamed to admit I was once again a puddle of tears as To Kill a Mockingbird drew to a close as I watched it to prepare for this review. I've seen the film countless times, and it has the same effect on me, certainly a good indication of just how emotionally powerful the film is. How many films can you think of that lose little if any of their emotional resonance upon repeated viewings? To Kill a Mockingbird is one of that rare breed of films which seems timeless even as it precisely recreates a very specific time and place. Classic film lovers have come to dread Universal catalog releases (rightly or wrongly), but To Kill a Mockingbird sets a new standard for the studio, one which they hopefully will continue with as their hundredth anniversary celebration takes center stage. To Kill a Mockingbird instantly jumps to the front of the pack of best releases in the still young 2012, and it comes

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To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Limited Edition (1962)

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