Inherit the Wind

UPC: 027616869388

Studio: MGM

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Profanity]

Summary: 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." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Category: Drama

Awards: Best British Film – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Picture - Drama – null Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – null Special Achievement – null Best Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Adapted Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Adapted Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Black and White Cinematography – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Silver Bear for Best Actor – Berlin International Film Festival Best Picture – National Board of Review Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Special Achievement – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Picture - Drama – Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Features: Original theatrical trailer
English: mono
French: mono
Spanish: mono
French & Spanish language subtitles

Inherit the Wind

Format: DVD

Release Date: 12/11/2001

Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Vistavision

Audio: 5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, 1 USA & territories, Canada

Runtime: 128 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French,Spanish

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Side #1 --
0. Scene Selections
1. Main Title/Monkey Trial [:09]
2. The Making of a Martyr [7:42]
3. Welcome Matthew Brady [6:21]
4. Fear of Falling [7:09]
5. Devil and Devolution [3:11]
6. The Twelfth Juror [6:29]
7. The Loneliest Feeling [11:55]
8. On the Sixth Day... [7:51]
9. "Golden Dancer and I" [4:34]
10. A Boy's Right to Think [:16]
11. Rachel's Twisted Words [3:59]
12. "Agnostic Scientists!" [8:31]
13. The Bible Defense [7:01]
14. "Brady Is a Fake" [11:51]
15. The Verdict & the End [19:28]
16. Alone and Smirking [5:24]

Bruce Eder

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. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Donald Elson  Actor 
Ned Young  Screenwriter 
Ernest Gold  Composer (Music Score) 
Stanley Kramer  Director 
Stanley Kramer  Producer 
Harold Jacob Smith  Screenwriter 
Spencer Tracy  Actor 
Fredric March  Actor 
Gene Kelly  Actor 
Florence Eldridge  Actor 
Dick York  Actor 
Henry "Harry" Morgan  Actor 
Donna Anderson  Actor 
Philip Coolidge  Actor 
Elliott Reid  Actor 
Claude Akins  Actor 
Paul Hartman  Actor 
Jimmy Boyd  Actor 
Noah Beery, Jr.  Actor 
Gordon Polk  Actor 
Ray Teal  Actor 
Norman Fell  Actor 
Hope Summers  Actor 
Renee Godfrey  Actor 

Country: USA