Synopsis
Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.
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Cast
- Spencer TracyHenry Drummond
- Fredric MarchMatthew Harrison Brady
- Gene KellyE.K. Hornbeck
- Dick YorkBertram T. Cates
- Donna AndersonRachel Brown
- Harry MorganJudge Mel
- Claude AkinsRev. Jeremiah Brown
- Elliott ReidProsecutor Tom Davenport
- Paul HartmanBailiff Mort Meeker
- Philip CoolidgeMayor Jason Carter
Recommendations
- 100
CineVue
A searing indictment of religious fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism. Inherit the Wind’s relevance continues beyond its immediate parallels with McCarthyism. - 100
TV Guide Magazine
Inherit The Wind acutely captures the farcical Monkey Trial and offers the awesome talents of two double-Oscar winners, Tracy and March, in their only film together. - 100
RogerEbert.com
It is Inherit the Wind among all of Kramer's films that seems most relevant and still generates controversy. - 90
The New York Times
One of the most intelligent, respectable and entertaining motion pictures of this year. - 80
Variety
This is a rousing and fascinating motion picture. Producer-director Stanley Kramer has held the action in tight check. - 60
Time Out
Tolerably gripping in its old-fashioned way, thanks chiefly to old pro performances from Tracy and March as the rival lawyers and ideologists, but rather let down by Kelly's inadequacy as the cynical journalist who is comfortably denounced as the real villain of the piece. - 50
Chicago Reader
Spencer Tracy does his cuddly curmudgeon turn as Clarence Darrow; it's a lazy, vague performance, but its wit provides the only crack of light in the film's somber, gray overcast. - 50
The New Yorker
The case itself had so many dramatic elements that the movie can't help holding our attention, but it's a very crude piece of work, totally lacking in subtlety; what is meant to be a courtroom drama of ideas comes out as a caricature of a drama of ideas, and maddeningly, while watching we can't be sure what is based on historical fact and what is invention.
