Peck: Another great one gone

Published 3:17 pm Tuesday, December 6, 2005

When the news came that actor Gregory Peck had died, I immediately thought of his portrayal of Atticus Finch in “To Kill A Mockingbird.” And I said to myself, “Another great one gone.”

Peck, in my opinion, was in the class of Gary Cooper, George C. Scott and select other actors who lived in a time when they had to carry their weight on the screen. They had to have a well written script and they had to give that writing life.

It was a time when “special effects” came from the actors themselves — when they appeared bigger than life, evoking passion and holding an audience spellbound with their talents.

In other words, they could not fall back on explosion after explosion after explosion. They did not kung fu themselves from scene to scene. Often their great scripts were inspired by great books, meaning that some writer poured his or her soul onto the pages of success long before the cameras were brought in.

I read “To Kill A Mockingbird” twice — once in high school and again about 12 years ago. I vividly remember the characters of Finch, Boo Radley and Scout. I’ve seen the movie at least three times.

For those who may have forgotten, “To Kill A Mockingbird” is the only book Harper Lee, an Alabama girl, ever wrote. She won a Pulitzer for it. It was a story of a young girl in the South who watched her lawyer daddy go against the odds in defending a black man while she observed the human condition in a time and place where great changes were on the horizon.

Often I seek some of the old classics on my cable selection. I find a few, but with 93 channels, I have often turned off the set because I couldn’t find anything I felt was worth watching.

Last night, for example, I went surfing the channels after the baseball game. There was a guy searching for gold with a metal detector. There was a lot of talk and very little gold. I have more in my dental work.

The scenery was beautiful. Unfortunately, it did not have Alan Ladd riding into it with that little boy running behind him yelling, “Shane! Shane! Come back Shane!”

Everyone knows about the crocodile channel. If you’ve seen a fool jump out of a boat onto a crocodile’s back once, then the next time is about the same. Since you can’t get the crocodile’s side of the story, it gets a little old.

And there was the Hispanic version of the Jerry Springer Show. Even though I don’t speak Spanish, throwing a chair in any language says about the same thing.

On one channel, Chuck Norris had more butts to kick than he had boots. Did anyone mention due process? This was one movie where it didn’t matter if the sound and the lips were synchronized.

Then there was an oldies quiz show which was really bad testimony for triple knit suits and lamb chop sideburns. What the heck were we thinking back then?

If we’re going to dig up old stuff to watch, why can’t we find more good old stuff? I don’t know how many times I’ve watched “The Grapes of Wrath” and “The Ox Bow Incident.” Even on third play they are still better than many of today’s first offerings.

There was a football game on the “classics channel” from 20 years ago. The same team lost again. I would not be surprised if someone didn’t lose money on it again — some of those people who appear on “Jenny Jones.”

So I retired to the back porch and thought about the quality of many of today’s movie scripts. Poetically, a chorus of bullfrogs in the pond back of my house suggested, “Rip it! Rip it! Rip it!”



Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. E-mail: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com.