Customer Reviews

Inherit the Wind [DVD] [1960] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As courtroom dramas go, this is unsurpassable: 'JFK', 'Anatomy of a Murder', even Spencer Tracy's later masterful performance in 'Judgement at Nuremberg'...none are quite as good as this. What makes it remarkable is that the trial of John Scopes for teaching evolutionary theory in Tennessee happened in 1925 and ought to feel like old history - but it isn't! America is still full of creationists who believe every word of the Old Testament is literally true - in many polls, it is the MINORITY in the States who side with Darwin.

In fact, this film is very balanced in terms of faith and science: it doesn't kick the Book of Genesis out completely. From today's perspective, here in a largely secular UK, parts of it seem a little quaint, not least the final revelation that Spencer Tracy's defence lawyer is actually a bit of a Bible buff deep down. Clarence Darrow, the real lawyer on whom Tracy's character is based, was rather less sentimental. I also suspect that Gene Kelly's big city journalist was intended at the time to be unpleasantly cynical, but by today's standards he seems spot on - his parting line is brilliant!

Of course, the film plays a little fast and loose with what happened in the real trial (which is presumably why all the names have been changed). It is still, however, a masterful piece of work, with scintillating dialogue and real drama - as topical today as when it was made.

This film is based on the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee about the 1925, Scopes Monkey Trial. It is tricky to keep the differences between this play and the real trial apart in one's mind. Spencer Tracy (Henry Drummond) and Fredric March (Matthew Harrison Brady) spar over the legality of teaching of evolution in Tennessee. This combination is guaranteed to keep you glued to your seat. In this movie Scopes, while teaching evolution to a high-school biology class is arrested and placed in jail.
Some time the other characters get lost in the shuffle yet one other will show through. That is Gene Kelley who plays E. K. Hornbeck who reports the trial.
I will not give a blow by blow of the trail but to say it gets rather heated and is broken up with several adjournments with time to reflect on what was said and going to be said.
If you are interested in the real thing then read Scopes Autobiography "Center of the Storm."
Pr 11:29... "HE WHO TROUBLES HIS OWN HOUSE WILL INHERIT THE WIND,"

This is one of my favourite films. The best thing about it is undeniably the incredibly written script, eloquent and thought provoking in the extremes. And the actors are all perfect. Spencer Tracey and Fredric March are incredible actors portraying the the friends on opposing sides of a court case, and I reckon this is Gene Kelly's best role as the sharp cynical reporter from New York. Overall this is a stunning film!

This is a really good film in all aspects. If you watch it simply as a very well produced film version of a fictional book, it is great to sit back and admire the quality of the work.

Some reviewers however do appear to have been misled into believing that the plot in some way matches the facts of the actual events of the famous Stopes trial. This is the fault of the book and misleading information over the years rather than the film per se, although there is no more attempt to inform the viewer of the film of this than there is the reader of the original play. if you have any doubt about the disparity between this fiction and the facts, watch the film, research the details of the actual people involved and read the genuine trial transcripts (everything is available in the public domain). As well as enjoying good cinema you may well then ask which people would spend so much time and money to try to blur the real historical facts with this particular fictional version and thus (apparently continue to) mislead many people and why they would wish to do so, rather than dramatising the event as it actually occurred. This background can then be related to more recent news items concerning debates on the subject of teaching of Origins on both sides of the Atlantic. You may well find the film much more thought provoking even than some of the other reviewers have suggested!

Hot on the heels of his `On The Beach', Stanley Kramer brings us `Inherit The Wind'.

This is a fine courtroom drama and much more, pitting theology against science. Filmed in B&W, Spencer Tracy heads an entirely believable cast of characters, who work a witty and insightful script to the full. An unexpected surprise is Gene Kelly featured in a rare straight role as a cynical reporter. The plot is based upon a true case of a US teacher prosecuted for teaching evolution at school (in the 20th century, would you believe).

Kramer's is a timeless movie where the pyrotechnics are exclusively cerebral. If anyone thinks that special-effects and big bangs are needful entertainment, this is the stuff to prove the opposite. I just thought the ending flagged a little.

The DVD supplied by Amazon was satisfactory in all respects. Soundtrack is claimed to have been restored, but is still in original mono. Run-time is given as 123mins, Viewer rating is `U'. There are no extras.

Recommended. Less than [] quid at time of purchase.

I first saw Inherit the wind as a teenager around ten years after it was made. I was just getting into courtroom dramas and would watch Perry Mason and others of its genre. I thought it was a "good" film and left it at that. Some ten years later I saw it again and this time through different eyes. The characterisations of the leading characters was perfect, sufficient to bring the roles to life but not to overwhelm the story. Each time I see the film I get more out of it. The arrogance of government trying to tell the people what they can and cannot hear and learn, the pomposity of the so called religous moral majority who take it upon themselves to prosecute a teacher who does not follow their teachings, the newspaper who will follow any course to grab a headline. Through all these plots and sub-plots the story winds a path which eventually results in the realisation in the viewer that the most important thing mankind has is his right to form his own views providing he has all the facts to hand. As the line from the film says "even a sponge has the right to think".
In these times when newspapers raise people to celebrity status only to knock them down, when the religous right tries to stop freedom of choice over many aspects of our lives such as abortion, when wars are fought based on religion, colour, tribal loyalties, this film shows us that eventually the freedom of thought is our greatest asset. Spencer Tracy, Frederick March and Gene Kelly give masterful faultless performances,despite the film being in black and white the atmosphere generated is consuming. This is a film which I watch every three to four months to remind myself of the performances and of my right to think.

Enoyed this film years ago.and i know that i will enjoy it time and time again.actors that are nolonger with us.but still live on in great movies like this one ,if you have not seen this film then you are in for areal treat

movie wasn't so much a debate about creation v evolution, as the value of free speech. The issues were analogous to the mcCarthyite "red under the bed" witch hunts in 1050's America. By use of rich caricature (though not removed from reality - the 'actors' are still with us in contemporary life)and dynamic dialogue, the script penetrated to the core of the issues. This compelling drama made good use of humour and i found it easy ti identify with the charachters. This is scriptwriting and directing of the highest quality. I wish there was more of it about. The value of free independent thought, free from persecution of any kind (however subtle - the media was criticised too) is of utmost value to our Human community.

Based upon a true story, in a small, American town. A science teacher (Dick York - who went on to play the beleagured husband, Darren, in "Bewitched") is accused, under an ancient law, of wrongly teaching Darwin's Theory of Evolution, rather than accepting the Creation, as told in The Bible. Thrown in jail for no more than teaching scientific fact, he is to be prosecuted by the most pious Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March), who is determined that the truth be told! However, rather than leaving the poor school teacher's fate to the hands of the Almighty, Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) decides to take up his case and the two great adversaries are prepared for battle.

From the outset, the town is divided: the majority are in favour of Christian teaching and values and even march around the town proclaiming that they'll hang the schoolteacher; pretty violent stuff for a supposedly forgiving religion. Was this the birth of religious extremism?

The trial is a farce, as well as a show. However, despite the passion and fervent attempts to see justice stifled, the defence continues. The heat is unbearable - both weather and atmospherically.

The scriptwriting is perfection; the acting flawless and the entire film is an absolute masterpeice; a story that simply must be told - and understood - for future generations. It is a story that has significance even (and especially) in the so-called modern world. When fanatics are allowed to do as they please, it is frightening to see how their own prejudices and stupidity mirror precisely the very things they purport to stand against. Watch this film and be afraid: it could still happen again!

This production well deserves preamble through the axiom "all wool and a yard wide", for its genuine purity, expansive narrative and unblemished impersonations.

Three characters stand at the heart of this courtroom drama fictionalising the controversial "Scopes Monkey Trial" of 1925; the defending lawyer on the side of science, a newspaper reporter in support of it and a fundamentalist acting for the prosecution, respectively played unflawed by Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly and Fredric March. Rare are the occasions when three great actors are brought together where each, singularly formidable in his own capacity, projects so zealous and passionate a performance that in harmony gives rise to a crescendo to which nothing but a standing ovation is deserving.

Filmed in monochrome declares a period where a history of antediluvian footage is assenting of that epoch, thus giving the film an appearance that does justice to 1920's raiment and idiosyncrasy, and atoning for the vestigial makeup that can be excused for the excellence which is commonplace throughout. This is a film sparing no rhetoric where abundant aphorisms and scientific and biblical phraseology are thrown from both sides of the argument to keep viewers on their toes with interest and admiration.

The story unfolds when a high school pedagogue in a small insular town of the State of Tennessee is taken into custody under the Butler Act, that which made it unlawful to teach any notion of the origin of man other than the Biblical account of man's origin, thereby drawing intense national publicity pitting two former colleagues against each other, one in support of modernism and the other for traditionalism, a trial that was to prove the critical turning point in the American creation-evolution controversy.

The threefold centre play combines excellent litigation by Henry Drummond (played by Spencer Tracy) vying his case vehemently for Darwinism against an unbending prosecution that thwarts his every attempt at a fair trial, the upholding of the Biblical teachings by the traditionalist Matthew Harrison Brady (played by Fredric March) who brings the faith and absolute belief to its literal meaning unquestioned, and the newspaper reporter E K Hornbeck (played by Gene Kelly) whose cynical and shrewd remarks at every opportunity bring him little friendship and favour from the townsfolk but certainly much laughter and approbation from his counterparts to his quips, for what a fine, but underrated, actor he truly was. Supporting actors all give respectable performances giving this film a well rounded aesthetic that will draw appeal for generations to come.

The quintessential form that engenders the paradigm from which all else of the class should educe.