I'm sure we'll see another version of Inherit The Wind with some of the players of
a new generation. This story about religion being written into the civil law is
sadly not out of style.
When the first version that starred Spencer Tracy and Fredric March came out it
was heralded as the Broadway play it was based on. But in 1960 it was looked on
as look back to another era where we presumably learned of the folly of imposing religious views on the body politic. I don't think anyone thought that the religious right would reawaken and become the force it has. Not in
1999 when this film came out or when another version that starred Kirk Douglas and Jason Robards, Jr. was made in 1988. All three versions have a
chilling timeliness about them now.
Tom Everett Scott is the high school biology teacher who violates a newly passed law making the teaching of Charles Darwin's The Origin Of The Species
a crime. He's the first charged under this new Tennessee statute and three
times presidential candidate Matthew Harrison Brady modeled on William
Jennings Bryan volunteers to be on the prosecution team.
Of course that generates a lot of publicity and Henry Drummond based on
Clarence Darrow is brought in to defend.
In the original film Fredric March really got the Bryan character down pat. But
George C. Scott is a fascinating Matthew Harrison Brady. Certainly the most
fanatical of the group. Then again few actors could get as intense as George
C. Scott.
Jack Lemmon is a more relaxed and low key Henry Drummond. He was not in
real life as noble a character as Spencer Tracy played him in 1960. Jason Robards, Jr. in the 1988 film was the closest to the real Clarence Darrow. But
closer than Robards is Orson Welles as Jonathan Wilk from the 1959 film
Compulsion based on the Leopold/Loeb murder case.
Of course the highlight in the film and the real trial itself is the confrontation
when Drummond(Darrow) calls Brady(Bryan) as an expert witness on the Bible.
Then as now how willfully ignorant Lemmon shows Scott to be. Not just
ignorant but determinedly so and determined to keep all views but his own out
of our educational system.
I can hardly wait for this oft told tale to be told again. Till then this and the
other version are to be seen and seen again.
