Inherit the Wind (1960 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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H. L. Mencken is fictionalized in the play Inherit the Wind (a fictionalized version of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925) as the cynical sarcastic atheist E. K. Hornbeck, played by Gene Kelly in the Hollywood film version. |
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Inherit the Wind is a 1960 Hollywood film adaptation of the 1955 play of the same name, written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, directed by Stanley Kramer.
It stars Spencer Tracy as lawyer Henry Drummond and Fredric March as his friend and rival Matthew Harrison Brady, also featuring Gene Kelly, Dick York, Harry Morgan, Donna Anderson, Claude Akins, Noah Beery, Jr., Florence Eldridge, and Jimmy Boyd.
The script was adapted by Nedrick Young (originally as Nathan E. Douglas) and Harold Jacob Smith. Stanley Kramer was commended for bringing in writer Nedrick Young, as the latter was blacklisted. Inherit the Wind is a parable that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a means to discuss McCarthyism. Written in response to the chilling effect of the McCarthy era investigations on intellectual discourse, the film (like the play) is critical of creationism.
The film had its World Premiere at the Astoria Theatre in London's West End on July 7, 1960.
A television remake of the film starring Melvyn Douglas and Ed Begley was broadcast in 1965. Another television remake starring Jason Robards and Kirk Douglas aired in 1988. It was once again remade for TV in 1999, co-starring Jack Lemmon.
Plot
In a small Southern town, a school teacher, Bertram Cates, is about to stand trial. His offense: violating a state law by introducing to his students the concept that man descended from the lower life forms, a theory of the naturalist Charles Darwin. Cates is denounced by town leaders including the Rev. Jeremiah Brown.
The town is excited because appearing on behalf of the prosecution will be Matthew Brady, a noted statesman and three-time presidential candidate. A staunch foe of Darwinism and a Biblical scholar, Brady will sit beside prosecuting attorney Tom Davenport, in the courtroom of Judge Coffey.
The teacher's defense is to be handled by the equally well-known Henry Drummond, one of America's most controversial legal minds and a long-standing acquaintance and adversary of Brady. An influential newspaperman, E.K. Hornbeck of the Baltimore Herald, has persuaded Drummond to represent Cates, and ensured that his newspaper and a radio network will provide nationwide coverage of the case.
Rev. Brown publicly rallies the townspeople against Cates and Drummond. The preacher's daughter Rachel is conflicted because she and Cates are engaged to be married.
The judge admires Brady, addressing him as "Colonel". Drummond objects to this; as a compromise the mayor makes him a "temporary" colonel for the proceedings. Each time Drummond calls a scientist or authority figure to discuss Darwin's theories, the judge sustains the prosecution's objections and forbids such opinions from being heard. Drummond grows frustrated, feeling the case has already been decided. When he asks to withdraw from the case, the judge tells Drummond to show cause the next morning why he should not be held in contempt of court. John Stebbins offers his farm as collateral toward the bail. His son was a friend and protege of Cates who drowned after developing a cramp while swimming. The Reverend had said the child was damned to hell because he was not baptized. This, led to Cates' abandonment of the church, as he felt it was not fair that a child could not enter Heaven due to an action that was beyond his control.
That night, mocking crowds go by the jail and then to the hotel where Drummond is staying. Drummond is trying to decide how to accomplish his defense without his witnesses and states that he needs a miracle. Hornbeck throws him a Bible from Brady stating there are plenty in that. As Hornbeck pours some drinks and turns to Drummond, he is surprised by Drummond holding the Bible and smiling.
Drummond calls Brady himself to the witness stand. Brady's confidence in his Biblical knowledge is so great that he welcomes this challenge, but becomes flustered under Drummond's cross-examination, unable to explain certain apparent contradictions, until he is forced to confess that at least some Biblical passages cannot be interpreted literally. Drummond hammers home his point – that Cates, like any other man, demands the right to think for himself, and those citing divine support as a rationale to silence him are wrong.
Cates is found guilty, but because Drummond has made his case so convincingly, with the trial becoming a political embarrassment, the judge only fines him $100. Brady is furious and tries to enter a speech into the record, but Drummond persuades the judge to disallow it as the trial has concluded. As court adjourns, Brady tries to give his speech but most ignore him outside of his wife and his opponents. As he becomes increasingly hysterical, he suffers from a "busted belly", dying in the courtroom.
After the crowd has cleared out, Hornbeck talks with Drummond, wanting to use the Bible quotation from Reverend Brown's rally and in which Brady had quoted the "inherit the wind" verse because Brown was about to damn his own daughter. Drummond quotes the verse verbatim, shocking Hornbeck, who states, "Well, we're growing an odd crop of agnostics this year!" They argue over Brady's legacy, Drummond accuses Hornbeck of being a heartless cynic, and Hornbeck walks out, leaving Drummond alone in the courtroom. Drummond picks up the Bible and Darwin's book (On the Origin of Species), balancing them in his hands before walking out with them.
See also
