Reviews

Ten year old Shari Robinson is the most co-ordinated dancer for her age I have ever seen. Shirly Temple is only a clod hopper compared to Shari. She was always perfect. I wonder why she did not make it big as she aged. She had the beauty, the voice, the personality to make it big. Does anyone know what happened to her? Dan Daily is a great dancer. I can forgive the black face, given the era. Dan, in my opinion is one of the very few really tall dancers who can pull it off. Most dancers, like Gene Kelly, are rather short. I have saved to my TIVO the last few minutes in which Shari and Dan do such a wonderful dance. I can play it over and over. The way they toss the walking cane back and forth is a miracle.

The courtroom procedure is the worst ever shown on the big screen. Lawyer Finch never brought up the impossibility of a one handed rapist to choke his victim as described. He did a silly exercise to show the girl's father was left-handed yet never brought this point home. He never brought up character references to show the reliability of the defendant. This oversight even existed in the novel, even though Tom's employer interrupted the court to pronounce this fact, and was dismissed from court. Prior to the trial the movie was more believable than the novel, which portrayed a first grade girl with vocabulary and reasoning ability of a much older person. This reminded me of a similar performance by the similarly aged young boy in the novel "Painted House". Just not realistic. I realize that to be critical of such a popular movie is akin to griping about movies such as "Casablanca", "Miracle on Forty Second Street", "Its A Wonderful Life", and their brethren. To my mind the performance of Gregory Peck is the bright spot in an otherwise boring movie. The bright spot was the statement by the black preacher to "Rise; Your father is passing".