To Kill A Mockingbird

Corrected entry: When Jem and Scout are talking to each other from their beds at night, Jem tells Scout that he was six when their mother died and she was two. That was four years ago which would make Jem ten years old now. After Mr. Ewell is killed and Atticus suspects Jem killed him, he tells the sheriff that he can't remember if Jem is twelve or thirteen.

Correction: The film takes place over at least a year or two, according to the book.

Corrected entry: When Scout is playing in the tyre, Jem roles it down the street. You see Scout hit the porch steps at the front of the Radley house, but when Jem goes to pick her up, you see him pick her up from the side of the house and not the front.

Correction: The tire rolls down the street, entering the side yard and striking the porch steps at the side of the house, not the front. Note that the porch extends the length of the front and around the side with a set of steps down to the side yard. This is evident in the following shots. There is no entry door behind the side steps that Scout hits, and in the next shot we see Jem running from the side steps up to the front door to tag it.

Corrected entry: When Atticus is in the courtroom, he asks Mr. Ewell to write his name. Two mistakes here: Mr. Ewell wasn't writing letters, just a bunch of random scribbles. But the second is, he's not writing at all. You can see the pencil is about half an inch from the paper.

Correction: He is barely literate and is scrawling his name on the paper as a child might do, with a series of lines and curves to make the letters. I have watched the film many times and he appears to be touching the paper with the pencil. He even pushes down hard enough to bend the paper at one point.

Corrected entry: If Tom Robinson had a problem with the strength of his left arm, he certainly had enough power and strength to strangle Ms. Mayella.

Correction: I think it was more a case of having no control over his left arm, so how could he hold her down, strangle her, and rape her all at the same time with only 1 arm.

Corrected entry: When the children and Atticus see the mad dog running up the street, throughout the scene there are shots looking down the street towards the dog. During these shots, you can see what looks like a mountain in the background. The story takes place in Alabama, but there are no mountains in Alabama.

Correction: The southern foothills of the Appalachian Mountain range are in Northern Alabama.

Corrected entry: In the scene where Jem is in the bed and the doctor is checking his arm, after his encounter with Bob Ewell, Calpurnia is holding the door shut. When Scout is in the room she spots Boo hiding behind the door. Calpurnia and the doctor should have seen Boo when the door was being held shut.

Correction: Both Calpurnia and the doctor know that Boo Radley is there and that he is extremely shy and introverted to the extent he is totally reclusive and mostly remains indoors. He only occasionally goes out into his yard late at night. Only Jem's life being in danger forced him to leave his home and brought him to the Finch's house. Cal and the doctor are simply respecting Boo's privacy by purposely ignoring him because they know he is incapable of interacting in any type of social setting. The entire story is mostly from Scout's and Jem's viewpoint, and Boo has been an enigma to them. Scout is seeing him for the first time.

raywest

Continuity mistake: Early in the courtroom scene there is a shot of Gregory Peck that is reversed. The part in his hair is not on the same side of his head that it is in the rest of the film.

More mistakes in To Kill A Mockingbird

Scout: Hey, Miss Dubose.
Miss Dubose: Don't you say hey to me, you ugly girl!

More quotes from To Kill A Mockingbird
More trivia for To Kill A Mockingbird

Question: Why did everybody in the courtroom go silent when Tom said that he did chores for Mayella because he felt sorry for her?

Answer: At that time in history, Tom, a black man, was considered inferior to Mayella, a white woman. When he says he "felt sorry" for her, it is interpreted as him thinking he is above her or better off in some way. Regardless of his good intentions, for him to think of himself as being in a superior position to help her was considered unacceptable because it was seen as a black person rising above their lower place in society.

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