Ten Days, Ten Movies, Ten Images: Day 1

Social media loves its games.

I love this one, because it ties into the work that I do as an assistant director of motion pictures and television, as well as a person who has passionately loved movies since I was six or seven years old.

The game is The Ten Day Movie Challenge, and the challenge is to post a single image from a film that had an impact on my life, without further comment, then nominate a friend to do the same.

So, yeah, I went along and posted an image (without an initial explanation) from 10 movies that had an impact on me, in no particular order.


I did *not* nominate any of my friends to begin his/her/their own 10 days, 10 movies, 10 images lists. I've been known to ignore arbitrary rules, and I hate pressuring people to participate when they might be too busy --- or too disinterested --- to do so.

The above image came to mind, as did this one (with Phillip Alford as Jem, Bill Walker as Reverend Sykes, and Mary Badham as Scout...

 And this one (with Robert Duvall as Boo Radley, and Badham) ...

 And this one (with Badham and Gregory Peck).

 I made no initial comments, but I have plenty to say about one of the most pivotal films of my childhood.  I'll make these posts in short, anecdotal forms, though, and save the treatise for my MFA in film!

When I decided to play along with this game, film after film came flooding into my mind. I guess it isn't a surprise how many of the films that had a lasting impact on me were movies I saw when I was very young. Most of the ones I chose for my list, I saw when I was twenty or under, and several were released (or re-released) when I was less than 12.  All of these movies were seen for the first time the way films deserve to be seen:  in a theatre, on a big screen. 

Here is the first:

"To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962)
Director: Robert Mulligan
Writers: Horton Foote (screenplay), from the novel by Harper Lee
Image: Gregory Peck (“Atticus Finch"), Brock Peters (“Tom Robinson”)

 I saw "To Kill a Mockingbird" when I was about 10, at a time when examples of racial injustice were daily headlines, including some involving members of my own family. 

Atticus, of course, is a towering figure of a man fighting against all odds for justice, but Tom is his equal in his quiet decency. 

I loved knowing that kids - especially girls like me - could be strong and brave. 

I appreciated learning that "the other" (Boo Radley) was not to be feared. 

I read the book several years later, and I have returned to it and the film repeatedly throughout my life.

It strikes me as tragic that so many are still called upon to stand up for racial equality and justice to this day, rather than those things being a given in our America. 

There's still work to do, to achieve that "more perfect union".

Cool aside: I met Gregory Peck at a first night party at the Mark Taper Forum theatre here in Los Angeles. I knew that he'd had people talk to him about this film for a couple of decades by then, but he could not have been more cordial and appreciative of my comments. A class act and a very good man.