Watching the film the other night, I was devastated when Robinson looks at Atticus as he is being led out of the courtroom, after the verdict has been read. I told you so, his look seems to say. It’s almost as if he blames Atticus for giving him grounds for hope. Nothing would change in Macomb County, Alabama.

I’m not sure that movie audiences in 1962 picked up on these emotions. Bosley Crowther’s review in the New York Times speaks of childhood joy and wonder and close family relationships in the picture (you wonder if he read the book) but only alludes to “the trial scene” and “good and evil.” Reviewers of Lee’s novel could be equally obtuse. The Atlantic called it “hammock reading” and reassured readers that, despite the main action (the trial of "a Negro accused of raping a white girl"), “none of it is painful, for Scout and Jem are happy children, brought up with angelic cleverness by their father and his old Negro housekeeper. Nothing fazes them much or long.”

I certainly see more now than I did the first time. Here we are, having traveled a long way since the era of Jim Crow and the early days of the Civil Rights Era, only to find ourselves back in Macomb County, Alabama.

Read the full review on Deathless Prose.