When INHERIT THE WIND first came out in 1960, I saw it in my native New York City as a college senior. Having majored in science as a pre-med student, I naively supposed this was an excellent movie about the 1920s. How could I imagine that it would be a harbinger of 2000? Now, we have the Kansas state board of education excluding evolution from public school science classrooms. So then Stanley Kramer's movie was a futuristic film in an early 20th Century setting. Considering his film was made during the communist witch hunting McCarthy era, and now Evil-utionists (using Matthew Harrison Brady's pronunciation) are in season, INHERIT THE WIND is even politically relevant (I almost wrote "correct" but today that word has lost its meaning) today. Now, I am a medical school professor who purchased two video cassettes of this movie right here. I can't stop watching this movie because the excellence of the acting and filmmaking is timelessly exciting. I certainly encourage all of my students and children to see this film for two reasons. The script provides a balanced insight into the personal issues associated with conflicts between scientific and religious (fundamentalist? extremist?) viewpoints; and also these are, even now, contemporary issues playing out in the theopolitical system that American democracy has become. And so Drummond's point to Brady is well taken: " ... does a man have the same right to think as a sponge?" This is still a valid question raised by a truly great, thought provoking and most entertaining American film. [Footnote criticism: Gene Kelly an otherwise good actor (and certainly great Hollywood dancer), seemed a bit out of place as the cynical newspaper man.]
Review of Inherit the Wind
