Inherit the Wind (1960) * * * *

 

Directed by:  Stanley Kramer

Starring:  Spencer Tracy, Frederic March, Harry Morgan, Dick York, Gene Kelly, Donna Anderson, Claude Akins

Inherit the Wind was written in the time of McCarthyism but it just as well be about today's political climate in which science is doubted and religious fervor takes over.   In the world of Inherit the Wind, promoting scientific fact is the same as spitting on the Bible.   Inherit the Wind stars Spencer Tracy and Frederic March (who had two Best Actor Oscars each) as dueling attorneys in the Scopes Monkey Trial, in which a schoolteacher was arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution.   The names here have all been changed, but make no mistake which trial the movie is focusing on.

Spencer Tracy as Henry Drummond (Clarence Darrow in real life) and Frederic March as Matthew Brady (William Jennings Bryan in real life) spar and spout their philosophies as friends turned adversaries who find themselves arguing in court over whether the Bible is to be taken literally.   Drummond eventually calls Brady to the stand, a moment Brady can't resist, and traps him with logic and reason.   Brady believes the Bible isn't to be interpreted, but taken at face value, which flies in the face of things we know to be true today that weren't true thousands of years ago.  "How long was a day?  Was it 24 hours?" Drummond asks Brady when reviewing the story of how God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh.  It's a valid question, but in Brady's mind and the minds of the townsfolk in which the trial occurs, it's heresy to question the Bible. 

Inherit the Wind remains timely and riveting as it combines historical fact with tense drama in which the lives of the players are affected in mostly negative ways by the sensationalism of the trial with newspaper editor E.K. Hornbeck (Kelly) fanning those flames.   You can make an argument that Inherit the Wind is a precursor which saw ahead to the O.J. Simpson case in which the courtroom met the media and created an unprecedented blitz which started the 24-hour news cycle.  Inherit the Wind stokes passions within its characters and within us and the main event is Tracy vs. March, two acting giants who spellbind us with their showdown, no matter what side you're on.