CATCH A CLASSIC
TCM Spotlight: Order in the Court: ‘For the Defense’
TCM, beginning at 5 p.m.
TCM’S Wednesday night May Spotlight will be adjourning soon, but not before one final evening of films with courtroom themes and settings. Tonight’s titles go on defense with stories about lawyers fighting for their defendants, beginning with one of the most beloved examples: “To Kill a Mockingbird,” (pictured) the Best Picture Oscar-nominated 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1960 novel. Best Actor Oscar-winning Gregory Peck stars as courageous Southern lawyer Atticus Finch, who defends Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), a Black man accused of raping a white woman — a case that heightens the tension in the already racially tense town, and which puts the safety of Finch and his family, and his strength of conviction, to the test. Up next is “Inherit the Wind” (1960), starring Best Actor Oscar nominee Spencer Tracy as lawyer Henry Drummond and Fredric March as his friend and rival Matthew Harrison Brady, in an acclaimed adaptation of the 1955 play that fictionalized the infamous 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial. Then, in “...And Justice for All” (1979), Al Pacino gives a Best Actor Oscar-nominated performance as Baltimore defense attorney Arthur Kirkland, who famously finds that “the whole trial is out of order!” when his frustrations with the legal system push him to the edge. The night concludes with “The Kiss” (1929), a silent drama starring Greta Garbo and Lew Ayres; and “The People Against O’hara” (1951), a film noir starring Spencer Tracy, Pat O’brien and James Arness.