Greetings, my film friends from Winchester.

A smile and a kind word go a long way in our world, which is not a discovery.

It takes more effort to be unkind than it does to be bold by being kind, humble and grateful.

Today’s film is a reinforcement of what we hopefully learned as children. Every life has a right to the preservation of dignity, the social battles of good versus evil, and to hold your integrity close as it is the strongest armor you have. These points were instructed and can be revisited this upcoming weekend in the award-winning classic, “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962).

“Mockingbird” drops the viewer into the sleepy little southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the 1930s depression era over three years.

This tale of childhood remembrance through the eyes of 6-year-old tomboy Scout, Mary “Let’s Kill Uncle” Badham learns about the harsh realities of life with her brother Jem, Philip “Shenandoah” Alford and friend Dill, John “The Cannonball Run” Megna.

Scout and her cohorts find themselves in losing their innocence way too soon when her widowed father, Atticus Finch, Gregory “Cape Fear” Peck is appointed to defend a young black man Tom, Brock “Soylent Green” Peters, who faces false accusations of raping an ignorant white woman in a racist town.

Luckily the children and the viewer are schooled in the way of decency and compassion toward others by the principled Atticus with the lesson “You never know someone until you step inside their skin and walk around a little.”

Robert “The Man in the Moon” Mulligan directed “To Kill a Mockingbird” and adapted it for the big screen based on author Harper Lee’s 1961 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name.

Lee based some of her childhood events and characters based off her Monroeville, Alabama hometown for the locale in “Mockingbird.” Lee only released one other novel, “Go Set a Watchmen” (2015) which is essentially a first draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Lee received the Presidential Medal of Freedom due to how her book addressed the need to destroy racism at a time in our country when Jim Crow was still the law in the south before the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Since its release in cinemas in 1962, “Mockingbird” has gone on to be deemed as a must-see classic and one of the greatest American films of all time based off a great American novel of all time. I would have to agree. For all of you Robert “The Godfather” Duvall fans, peek at this flick as it is his on-screen debut as he portrays Boo, the neighborhood recluse.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” will be presented by Fathom Events as part of the Classic Screen Series.

Show times are 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. March 24 and noon and 7 p.m. March 27 at the Hamburg Pavilion 16, Cinemark at Fayette Mall and Cinemark at Richmond Hills

Atticus and I leave you with this as you go about your day, “…it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.”

Be nice to each other and have a film-tastic day.