Inherit the Wind

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Inherit the Wind (Jun-1960)

Name Occupation Birth Death Known for

Claude Akins Actor 25-May-1926 27-Jan-1994 Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo

Noah Beery, Jr. Actor 10-Aug-1913 1-Nov-1994 Rocky on The Rockford Files

Norman Fell Actor 24-Mar-1924 14-Dec-1998 Mr. Roper on Three's Company

Gene Kelly Actor 23-Aug-1912 2-Feb-1996 Singin' in the Rain

Fredric March Actor 31-Aug-1897 14-Apr-1975 The Best Years of Our Lives

Harry Morgan Actor 10-Apr-1915 Col. Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H

Spencer Tracy Actor 5-Apr-1900 10-Jun-1967 Two consecutive Best Actor Oscars

Dick York Actor 4-Sep-1928 20-Feb-1992 Darrin #1 on Bewitched

REVIEWS

Review by Anonymous (posted on 20-Aug-2007)

Excellent film based not so much on the actual Scopes trial but on the play "adaptation" of the actual events. The play (and the film for that matter) was made as a critique of McCarthyism and the Cold War climate of the time, not so much as a direct foray into the Religion/Politics debate. Stanley Kramer's direction is overly theatrical and it works. Spencer Tracey and Fredic March are both superb in their respective roles as Clarence Darrow and Matthew Harrison Brady (a fictionalized William Jennings Bryant). The film illustrates the dangers of fanaticism using religous fervor as a primary example. The film does not promote atheism over religion, nor Darwinism over creationism, rather it tries to explore the dangers of suppression of free thinking. Kramer would follow this film with another courtroom drama, the classic Judgment at Nuremberg.

Review by anonymous (posted on 12-Feb-2007)

The film did a good job of stereotyping southern Christians as boobs and fanatics, without properly addressing the philosophical issues that Darwin's theory of evolution raised. For example, it provided the intellectual justification for eugenics, population control, forced sterilization and genocide. (There exists nothing in science or Darwinism that condemns genocide as bad. Genocide follows logically from the theory.) It falsified the original Scopes trial, but most viewers will never learn that. But, as a Hollywood movie, it was good entertainment. So, who is going to criticize good entertainment?

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