Mary Badham Movies

The directing debut of actor Cameron Watson, Our Very Own chronicles the daily hopes and dreams of high schoolers and their parents in a small Tennessee town, circa 1978. Shelbyville is the real-life birthplace not only of Watson, who wrote the script from his own recollections, but also of actress Sondra Locke -- or as the townspeople know her, "our very own Sondra Locke." The events take place in the days leading up to the town's annual horse show, where it is rumored Locke will return as a special guest. Melora (Autumn Reeser) has dreams of following Locke's path to stardom from meager beginnings, and hopes to meet the actress to pick her brain/get discovered. Her best friend, Clancy (Jason Ritter), has enough real-world problems to worry about, between falling in love with Melora and watching his parents (Keith Carradine and Allison Janney) fight over their impending bankruptcy and his father's drinking problem. Their friends Ray (Derek Carter) and Bobbie (Hilarie Burton) just want to get a car to find something to do in Nashville, while musical theater aficionado Glen (Michael McKee) begins wondering if he is coming of age differently than his friends. As the town starts to buzz with the excitement of the festival, the characters must face the decisions that will affect their futures. Cheryl Hines and Beth Grant also appear in supporting performances. Janney was nominated for a 2005 Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi

Sydney Pollack's tawdry potboiler, adapted from a one-act play by Tennessee Williams, was rife with production problems, culminating in Williams' failed attempt to have his name removed from the credits. The story is set by a framing device as thirteen-year-old Willie Starr (Mary Badham) sits on an abandoned railroad track with her friend Tom (Jon Provost) and relates the tale of her deceased older sister Alva (Natalie Wood). Alva is a beautiful woman living in a small Mississippi town in the 1930s with her manipulative mother Hazel (Kate Reid), the owner of a boarding house. Hazel wants Alva to marry the well to do Mr. Johnson (John Harding), but Alva has fallen in love with a good-looking stranger from New Orleans, Owen Legate (Robert Redford), who is in Mississippi to lay off railroad workers. Hazel is opposed to their love affair and when Owen is beaten to a pulp by a gang of workers, he decides to leave town and take Alva with him. But Hazel fools Owen into thinking Alva is engaged to Mr. Johnson. In retaliation, Alva marries Hazel's loutish lover J.J. (Charles Bronson). The next day, she abandons J.J. to meet Owen in New Orleans. Her mother, incensed at Alva's betrayal, sets out to ruin her daughter's reputation by exposing her marriage to J.J. to the world. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel was translated to film in 1962 by Horton Foote and the producer/director team of Robert Mulligan and Alan J. Pakula. Set a small Alabama town in the 1930s, the story focuses on scrupulously honest, highly respected lawyer Atticus Finch, magnificently embodied by Gregory Peck. Finch puts his career on the line when he agrees to represent Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), a black man accused of rape. The trial and the events surrounding it are seen through the eyes of Finch's six-year-old daughter Scout (Mary Badham). While Robinson's trial gives the film its momentum, there are plenty of anecdotal occurrences before and after the court date: Scout's ever-strengthening bond with older brother Jem (Philip Alford), her friendship with precocious young Dill Harris (a character based on Lee's childhood chum Truman Capote and played by John Megna), her father's no-nonsense reactions to such life-and-death crises as a rampaging mad dog, and especially Scout's reactions to, and relationship with, Boo Radley (Robert Duvall in his movie debut), the reclusive "village idiot" who turns out to be her salvation when she is attacked by a venomous bigot. To Kill a Mockingbird won Academy Awards for Best Actor (Peck), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Art Direction. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi