Inherit the Wind (1960 film)
Encyclopedia
Inherit the Wind is a 1960 Hollywood film adaptation of the play of the same name
Inherit the Wind (play)
Inherit the Wind is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. The play, which debuted in 1955, is a parable that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a means to discuss the then-contemporary McCarthy trials.-Background:...

, written by Jerome Lawrence
Jerome Lawrence
Jerome Lawrence was an American playwright and author.-Life and career:Lawrence was born Jerome Lawrence Schwartz in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Sarah , a poet, and Samuel Schwartz, a printer. He worked for several small newspapers as a reporter/editor before moving into radio as a writer for CBS....

 and Robert Edwin Lee
Robert Edwin Lee
Robert Edwin Lee was an American playwright and lyricist. With his writing partner, Jerome Lawrence, Lee worked for Armed Forces Radio during World War II; Lawrence and Lee became the most prolific writing partnership in radio, with such long-running series as Favorite Story among others.-Life and...

, directed by Stanley Kramer
Stanley Kramer
Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer. Kramer was responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous "message" movies...

.

It stars Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...

 as lawyer Henry Drummond and Fredric March
Fredric March
Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...

 as his friend and rival Matthew Harrison Brady, also featuring Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...

, Dick York
Dick York
Richard Allen "Dick" York was an American actor. He is best remembered for his role as the first Darrin Stephens on the ABC television fantasy sitcom Bewitched...

, Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan is an American actor. Morgan is well-known for his roles as Colonel Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H , Pete Porter on both Pete and Gladys and December Bride , Detective Bill Gannon on Dragnet , and Amos Coogan on Hec Ramsey...

, Donna Anderson
Donna Anderson
Donna Anderson is an American actress, who had a film career as a character actress during the 1960s and 1970s. She appeared on television in the series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters and Little House on the Prairie and many more.-Early life:Anderson was born Donna Knaflich in Gunnison,...

, Claude Akins
Claude Akins
Claude Marion Akins was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen and television.Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series...

, Noah Beery, Jr.
Noah Beery, Jr.
Noah Lindsey Beery , known professionally as Noah Beery, Jr. or just Noah Beery, was an American actor specializing in warm, friendly character parts similar to the ones played by his uncle Wallace Beery, although Noah Beery, Jr., unlike his uncle, seldom broke away from playing supporting...

, Florence Eldridge
Florence Eldridge
Florence Eldridge was an American actress.-Personal life:...

, and Jimmy Boyd
Jimmy Boyd
Jimmy Boyd was an American singer, musician, and actor. He was best known for his recording of the novelty song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus".-Early years:...

.

The script was adapted by Nedrick Young
Nedrick Young
Nedrick Young was a screenwriter often blacklisted during the 1950s and 1960s. He is credited with writing the screenplay for Jailhouse Rock in 1957, which starred Elvis Presley....

 (originally as Nathan E. Douglas) and Harold Jacob Smith.

Inherit the Wind is a parable
Parable
A parable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive principles, or lessons, or a normative principle. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human...

 that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial
Scopes Trial
The Scopes Trial—formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial—was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act which made it unlawful to...

 as a means to discuss McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...

. Written in response to the chilling effect of the McCarthy era investigations on intellectual discourse, the play (and film) are critical of creationism.

It was remade in 1999
Inherit the Wind (1999 film)
Inherit the Wind is a 1999 television film adaptation of the play of the same name. The original 1955 play was written as a parable which fictionalized the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a means of discussing the 1950s McCarthy trials....

, co-starring Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon
John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...

 as Drummond and George C. Scott
George C. Scott
George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...

 as Brady.

Plot

In a small Southern town, a school teacher, Bertram Cates, is about to stand trial. His offense: Introducing to his students the concept that man descended from the apes, a theory of the naturalist Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

, though vigorously renounced by town leaders such as the Rev. Jeremiah Brown.

The town is excited because appearing on behalf of the prosecution will be the famous Matthew Harrison Brady, a noted statesman and failed presidential candidate. A staunch foe of Darwinism and a Biblical scholar, Brady will sit beside his hand-picked prosecuting attorney, Davenport, in the courtroom of Judge Coffey to teach the naive teacher Cates the error of his ways.

A surprise is in store for Brady, however. 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 personally seen to it that Drummond will come to town to represent the teacher in this case, and that his newspaper and a radio network will provide nationwide coverage of what began as a minor legal matter.

Rev. Brown rails against the defendant publicly, rallying the townspeople against Cates and his godless attorney. The preacher's daughter Rachel is conflicted because Cates is the love of her life.

The judge clearly admires Brady, even addressing him as "Colonel" in court. Drummond objects to this, so, as a compromise, the judge reluctantly makes him a "temporary" colonel just for these proceedings. But each time Drummond attempts to call a scientist or authority figure to discuss Darwin's theories, the judge sustains the prosecution's objections and forbids such opinions to be heard.

His hands tied in every other way, Drummond has no other choice but to put Brady himself on the witness stand. Brady's confidence in his Biblical knowledge is so great that he welcomes this challenge, but he becomes flustered under Drummond's cross-examination, unable to explain certain apparent contradictions, until Drummond hammers home his point -- that Cates, like any other man, demands the right to think for himself.

Cates is ultimately found guilty, to the gallery's relief, but because Drummond has made his case so convincingly, the judge sees fit to do no more than make him pay a very small fine. Brady is furious at this and begins to scream hysterically. During this fit he suffers a cardiac arrest and dies in the court room.

The final scene shows Drummond walking out of the court room holding both The Bible and a text on evolution.

Cast

  • Spencer Tracy
    Spencer Tracy
    Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...

     as Henry Drummond (patterned after Clarence Darrow
    Clarence Darrow
    Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...

    )
  • Fredric March
    Fredric March
    Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...

     as Matthew Harrison Brady (patterned after William Jennings Bryan
    William Jennings Bryan
    William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...

    )
  • Florence Eldridge
    Florence Eldridge
    Florence Eldridge was an American actress.-Personal life:...

     as Sara Brady
  • Gene Kelly
    Gene Kelly
    Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...

     as E. K. Hornbeck of the Baltimore Herald (patterned after Henry L. Mencken)
  • Dick York
    Dick York
    Richard Allen "Dick" York was an American actor. He is best remembered for his role as the first Darrin Stephens on the ABC television fantasy sitcom Bewitched...

     as Bertram T. Cates (patterned after John Scopes)
  • Donna Anderson
    Donna Anderson
    Donna Anderson is an American actress, who had a film career as a character actress during the 1960s and 1970s. She appeared on television in the series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters and Little House on the Prairie and many more.-Early life:Anderson was born Donna Knaflich in Gunnison,...

     as Rachel Brown
  • Harry Morgan
    Harry Morgan
    Harry Morgan is an American actor. Morgan is well-known for his roles as Colonel Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H , Pete Porter on both Pete and Gladys and December Bride , Detective Bill Gannon on Dragnet , and Amos Coogan on Hec Ramsey...

     as Judge Mel Coffey
  • Claude Akins
    Claude Akins
    Claude Marion Akins was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen and television.Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series...

     as Rev. Jeremiah Brown
  • Elliott Reid
    Elliott Reid
    Elliott Reid is an American character actor from New York City.He worked regularly in radio dramas during the Golden Age of radio...

     as Prosecutor Tom Davenport
  • Paul Hartman
    Paul Hartman
    Paul Hartman was an American dancer, stage performer and television character actor.-Biography:Born in San Francisco, California, Hartman, like Fred Astaire, began performing as a dancer with his sister...

     as Deputy Horace Meeker - Bailiff
  • Philip Coolidge as Mayor Jason Carter
  • Jimmy Boyd
    Jimmy Boyd
    Jimmy Boyd was an American singer, musician, and actor. He was best known for his recording of the novelty song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus".-Early years:...

     as Howard
  • Noah Beery Jr. as John Stebbins
  • Norman Fell
    Norman Fell
    Norman Fell , born Norman Noah Feld, was an American actor of film and television, most famous for his role as landlord Mr. Roper on the sitcom Three's Company and its spin-off, The Ropers.-Early life:...

     as WGN Radio Technician
  • Hope Summers
    Hope Summers
    Hope Summers was an American character actress known for her work on The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry RFD, portraying Clara Edwards.-Career:...

     as Mrs. Krebs - Righteous Townswoman
  • Ray Teal
    Ray Teal
    Ray Teal was an actor who appeared in more than 250 movies and some 90 television programs in his 37-year career. His longest running role was as Sheriff Roy Coffee on NBC's most successful western, Bonanza...

     as Jessie H. Dunlap
  • Renee Godfrey
    Renee Godfrey
    Renee Godfrey was an American stage and motion picture actress and singer.-Biography:...

     as Mrs. Stebbins
  • Uncredited roles include Richard Deacon
    Richard Deacon (actor)
    Richard Deacon , born in Philadelphia, was an American television and motion picture actor.-Career:The bald and usually bespectacled character actor often portrayed pompous or imperious figures. He made appearances on The Jack Benny Show as a salesman and a barber, and on NBC's Happy as a hotel...

    , George Dunn, Snub Pollard
    Snub Pollard
    Harry "Snub" Pollard was a silent film comedian, popular in the 1920s.-Career:Often mistaken as the brother of Australian actress Daphne Pollard, in fact the two were not related despite their shared surname. Harry Pollard was born as Harold Fraser and took the name Pollard as his stage name...

    , Addison Richards
    Addison Richards
    Addison Richards was an American film actor. He appeared in over 300 films between 1933 and 1964. He died from a heart attack...

    , Harry Tenbrook
    Harry Tenbrook
    Harry Tenbrook born Henry Olaf Hansen, was a Norwegian-born American film actor. He appeared in some 332 films between 1911 and 1960. A favorite of John Ford, Tenbrook was a prominent member of the John Ford Stock Company...

    , Will Wright
    Will Wright (actor)
    William Henry "Will" Wright was an American character actor. He was frequently cast in curmudgeonly roles. He was sometimes credited as Will J. Wright....



Kramer offered the role of Henry Drummond to Spencer Tracy, who turned it down. Kramer then listed March, Eldridge, and Kelly as co-stars, and Tracy eventually signed. However, none of the co-stars had been signed at the time; Tracy was the first. Once Tracy signed to do the part, the others signed, also.

Adaptation changes

The film includes events from the actual Scopes trial, such as when Darrow was indicted for contempt of court
Contempt of court
Contempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...

 when he denounced his perception of prejudice by the court and his subsequent act of contrition the next day to have the charge dropped. The film also expands on the relationship of Drummond and Brady, particularly when the two opponents have a respectful private conversation in which they explain their positions in the trial. Furthermore, the film has a sequence occurring on the night after the court recessed and Cates and Drummond are harassed by a mob even as the lawyer is inspired how to argue his case the next day.

Critical reception

Reviews

Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

 has given the film a 90% rating with 19 fresh and 2 rotten reviews. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 refers to it as "'a film that rebukes the past when it might also have feared the future." Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

described the film as "a rousing and fascinating motion picture [...] roles of Tracy and March equal Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow
Clarence Seward Darrow was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union, best known for defending teenage thrill killers Leopold and Loeb in their trial for murdering 14-year-old Robert "Bobby" Franks and defending John T...

 and William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...

 who collided on evolution [...] a good measure of the film's surface bite is contributed by Gene Kelly as a cynical Baltimore reporter (patterned after Henry L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...

) whose paper comes to the aid of the younger teacher played by Dick York. Kelly demonstrates again that even without dancing shoes he knows his way on the screen."

Awards

Academy Awards
Inherit the Wind was nominated for four Academy Awards.
Award Result Nominee
Best Actor
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

 
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...

 
Winner was Burt Lancaster
Burt Lancaster
Burton Stephen "Burt" Lancaster was an American film actor noted for his athletic physique and distinctive smile...

 - Elmer Gantry
Elmer Gantry (film)
Elmer Gantry is a 1960 drama film about a con man and a female evangelist selling religion to small town America. Adapted by director Richard Brooks, the film is based on the 1927 novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis and stars Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons.Lancaster won an Academy Award for...

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium  Nedrick Young
Nedrick Young
Nedrick Young was a screenwriter often blacklisted during the 1950s and 1960s. He is credited with writing the screenplay for Jailhouse Rock in 1957, which starred Elvis Presley....

 and Harold Jacob Smith 
Winner was Richard Brooks
Richard Brooks
Richard Brooks was an American screenwriter, film director, novelist and occasional film producer.-Early life and career:...

 - Elmer Gantry
Elmer Gantry (film)
Elmer Gantry is a 1960 drama film about a con man and a female evangelist selling religion to small town America. Adapted by director Richard Brooks, the film is based on the 1927 novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis and stars Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons.Lancaster won an Academy Award for...

Best Cinematography (Black-and-White)
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...

 
Ernest Laszlo
Ernest Laszlo
Ernest Laszlo, A.S.C. was a Hungarian-American cinematographer for over 60 films, and was known for his frequent collaborations with directors Robert Aldrich and Stanley Kramer...

 
Winner was Freddie Francis
Freddie Francis
Frederick William Francis BSC was an English cinematographer and film director.He achieved his greatest successes as a cinematographer, including winning two Academy Awards, for Sons and Lovers and Glory...

 - Sons and Lovers
Sons and Lovers (1960 film)
Sons and Lovers is a British 1960 film adaptation of the D. H. Lawrence novel Sons and Lovers. It was adapted by T. E. B. Clarke and Gavin Lambert and directed by Jack Cardiff...

Best Film Editing  Frederic Knudtson
Frederic Knudtson
Frederic Knudtson was an American film editor with 79 credits over his career, which spanned 1932 to 1964...

 
Winner was Daniel Mandell
Daniel Mandell
Daniel Mandell was an American film editor with more than 70 film credits. His career spanned films from The Turmoil in 1924 to The Fortune Cookie in 1966...

 - The Apartment
The Apartment
The Apartment is a 1960 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray. It was Wilder's follow-up to the enormously popular Some Like It Hot and, like its predecessor, was a commercial and critical hit, grossing $25...



BAFTA
  • Nominated: Best Film
  • Nominated: Best Foreign Actor (March and Tracy)


Berlin International Film Festival
10th Berlin International Film Festival
The 10th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 24 June to 5 July 1960.-Jury:* Harold Lloyd * Georges Auric* Henry Reed* Sohrab Modi* Floris Luigi Ammannati* Hidemi Ima* Joaquín de Entrambasaguas* Frank Wisbar...

  • Won: Silver Bear for Best Actor
    Silver Bear for Best Actor
    The Silver Bear for Best Actor is the Berlin International Film Festival's award for achievement in performance by an actor.- Awards :- External links :*...

     (March)
  • Won: Best Feature Film Suitable for Young People (Kramer)
  • Nominated: Golden Bear
    Golden Bear
    According to legend, the Golden Bear was a large golden Ursus arctos. Members of the Ursus arctos species can reach masses of . The Grizzly Bear and the Kodiak Bear are North American subspecies of the Brown Bear....

     award (Kramer)


Golden Globes
  • Nominated: Best Film
  • Nominated: Best Actor (Tracy)

External links and references

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