Films involving Learning Difficulties

Learning Difficulties (Mental Retardation): Minor Films

Title	To Kill a Mocking Bird (1962)
Alternative/Original Title
Disability	Learning difficulty
Country	USA
Length	129
Genre	Drama
Rating	5
Director	Robert Mulligan
Cast	Gregory Peck Mary Badham Philip Alford John Megna Brock Peters Robert Duvall Frank Overton Rosemary Murphy
Notes	B/W. This is a simple story of a black worker wrongly accused of rape and defended by the local lawyer. Despite his obvious innocence he is convicted and later killed while attempting to escape. But everything is in the detail. It is a superb film included here because of the mysterious Boo Radley (Duvall) who in some way is "mentally disabled". One could almost say the film would be better without the court scene because it is when the children are the centre of the action that the film is at its best. One wonders what happened to first-time actors Mary Badham and Philip Alford. Tom Robinson who plays the black worker accused of rape has a useless left arm caught in a cotton gin when he was 12 years old. From the novel by Harper Lee. I've learned that Mary Badham had never acted before nor since, and is the sister of director John Badham. Also Harper Lee has never written another novel.

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