Inherit the Wind is a 1960 Hollywood film adaptation of the play of the same name, directed by Stanley Kramer and starring Spencer Tracy (Drummond) and Fredric March (Brady), and featuring Gene Kelly (Hornbeck).
Inherit the Wind is a parable which fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a means to discuss McCarthyism.[2] Rotten Tomatoes has given the film an 90% rating with 19 fresh and 2 rotten reviews.[4] Roger Ebert refers to it as "'a film that rebukes the past when it might also have feared the future." [5] Variety described the film as "a rousing and fascinating motion picture [...] roles of Tracy and March equal Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan 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) 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."
The real life Scopes Trial on evolution has often been studied in American classrooms in correspondence with this film. I remember being tested extensively over the both the film and the Trial when I was in secondary school. More than anything, the trial and the film alike are both a testament to the power of free will and the pursuit of scientific endeavor. Although Tracy's Darrow character argues for teacher Cate's right to teach evolution in the classroom, in the end scene with Gene Kelly's skeptic agnostic character we learn that although he defends Cates right to teach evolution, he in no way sees it as contradictory to scripture and faith, as a rousing rendition of "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, his truth is marching on" as Darrow (and Tracy the actor) exit for the final time.
This would be Spencer Tracy's last great film, as Marlon Brando and the "method acting" age would soon insue and the great 'Spence' would pass away a few years later and into cinematic history. And the most signifigant paramount of this film is the roaring court room exchanges between the two screen legends Tracy and Fredric March, which served as a projection for the real-life exchanges between Clarence Darrow and Jennings Bryan. It's been said that actors from all around the studios on different sets would flock into the courtroom scene and around the shooting to get a glimpse of the two giants each deliver their swan-song performances as actors--Burt Reynolds has talked extensively about the impact of this scene and Tracy on his career (btw the real-life creationist preacher Matthew Harrison Brady did die from a heart attack after the trial, but days later in his home, and not in the courtroom after the jury's deliberation as is depicted in this film.)
