Inherit the Wind [Blu-ray]

Director: Stanley Kramer Stanley Kramer

Overview

The Evolution vs. Creationism argument is at the center of the Jerome Lawrence-Robert E. Lee Broadway play Inherit the Wind. Lawrence and Lee's inspiration was the 1925 "Monkey Trial," in which Tennessee schoolteacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in violation of state law. Scopes deliberately courted arrest to challenge what he and his supporters saw as an unjust law, and the trial became a national cause when The Baltimore Sun, represented by the famed (and atheistic) journalist H. L. Mencken, hired attorney Clarence Darrow to defend Scopes. The prosecuting attorney was crusading politician William Jennings Bryan, once a serious contender for the Presidency, now a relic of a past era. While Bryan won the case as expected, he and his fundamentalist backers were held up to public ridicule by the cagey Darrow. In both the play and film versions of Inherit the Wind, the names and places are changed, but the basic chronology was retained, along with most of the original court transcripts. John Scopes becomes Bertram Cates (Dick York); Clarence Darrow is Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy); William Jennings Bryan is Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March); and H. L. Mencken is E. K. Hornbeck (Gene Kelly). Dayton, Tennessee is transformed into Hillsboro -- or, as the relentlessly cynical Hornbeck characterizes it, "Heavenly Hillsboro."

Product Details

Release Date:	01/09/2018
UPC:	0738329225728
Original Release:	1960
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	2:08:00
Sales rank:	20,740

Special Features

Audio Commentary by Film Historian Jim Hemphill; Original Theatrical Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Spencer Tracy	Henry Drummond
Fredric March	Matthew Harrison Brady
Gene Kelly	Hornbeck
Florence Eldridge	Mrs. Brady
Dick York	Cates
Donna Anderson	Rachel
Harry Morgan	Judge
Elliott Reed	Davenport
Philip Coolidge	Mayor
Claude Akins	Reverend
Paul Hartman	Meeker
Jimmy Boyd	Howard
Noah Beery Jr.	Stebbins
Gordon Polk	Sillers
Ray Teal	Dunlap
Norman Fell	Radio Announcer
Hope Summers	Mrs. Krebs
Renee Godfrey	Mrs. Stebbins
Elliott Reid	Prosecutor Tom Davenport
Gail Bonney	Fundamentalist Woman
Jack Daly	Eskimo Pie Vendor in Courtroom
Lester Dorr	Dr. John
Donald Elson	Bollinger
Duke Fishman	Courtroom Spectator
David Fresco	Threatening Spectator
Earle Hodgins	Dr. Britton's Tonic Spieler with Chimp
Wendell Holmes	Banker
Harp McGuire	Harry Esterbrook
Robert Osterloh	Sam
Joe Ploski	Courtroom Spectator
'Snub' Pollard	Courtroom Spectator
Bert Stevens	Courtroom Spectator
Hal Taggart	Juror
Harry Tenbrook	Courtroom Spectator
Charles Wagenheim	Hotel Clerk
Ernest Gold	Composer

Technical Credits

Harold Jacob Smith

Nathan E. Douglas

Stanley Kramer	Director,Producer
Harold Jacob Smith	Screenwriter
Nathan E. Douglas	Screenwriter
Jerome Lawrence	Playwright
Robert E. Lee	Playwright

Editorial Reviews

Stanley Kramer's Inherit The Wind is the topical movie that has aged better than almost anything else in Kramer's directorial output. In contrast to most of the social-issue films that he directed, including On the Beach, Inherit the Wind often seems as immediate and gripping as it did in 1960, mostly because its issues have not gone away. Adapted from the hit play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, the film is exceptionally true to its source, with virtually all the second half confined to the courtroom. It is a tribute to Kramer's often underrated skill as a director, as well as to the material and the cast, led by Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly, that the movie never lets up in tension or focus. The film also benefits from some vivid and convincing performances by the supporting cast: March's wife Florence Eldridge as Brady's wife, Donna Anderson as the woman betrothed to the accused school teacher, Claude Akins as her minister father, Dick York as the accused teacher, and Hope Summers, Ray Teal, and William Fawcett as various small town types. This is a model of how every faithful screen adaptation of a play should look.