Inherit the Wind

In professional wrestling, , there is on occasion something called the "one-match show". While these events will have several matches scheduled, most of them don't have half the interest or importance or compelling nature as that one match does. Those other matches might turn out good, but that one match is more than great. It is legendary. Inherit The Wind, a fictionalized retelling of the Scopes trial that saw a teacher tried for teaching evolution in school in a small, heavily religious Southern town, is a one-match show, and that match is acting. That's not to say everything else is insufficient. But this is a legal drama, first, last, and foremost. It is not here for sweeping crane shots and one-takes. It is not here for sound mixing and a dramatic orchestral score. It isn't even here for its script, which while well-written, is nothing unique in terms of courtroom dramas (although Gene Kelly's snappy, cynical one-liners are a constant delight). No, Inherit The Wind is here for the acting. Dick York as Bertram Cates, the unintentional martyred teacher who just wanted to educate kids and found his life become the battleground for a war between theology and science, and the intersection of religion and law. Donna Anderson as his fiance Rachel, her love torn between her husband, her father (the town minister), and her own faith. And then there's Gene Kelly as EK Hornbeck, a cynical, wise-cracking journalist, covering the story and firmly in the camp of Cates, owing to his disdain for religion. I'd only see Kelly in light-hearted musicals prior to this. To see him in a dramatic role, and in a role so misanthropic, is quite the jarring experience, but he pulled it off. But the main event here, the reason to watch Inherit The Wind, is the acting duel between Spencer Tracy (playing Cates' lawyer, Henry Drummond) and Fredric March (playing Matthew Brady, prosecuting attorney and religious extremist). These two own this movie through and through. Their verbal sparring throughout the movie leaves everybody else, who are all doing fantastic mind you, in their dust. Tracy plays Drummond as passionate but respectful, a man not out to elevate one belief system over another, but to argue that there should be room for both, and that to turn faith into a weapon is a bigger betrayal than scientific debate could ever manage. March, meanwhile, is defiant, strident, a man who believes he is standing up for God but doesn't realize he's also standing in the way of the natural order of progress. He doesn't see that he has helped turn the town's faith toxic, and that he's become an idolator of himself. This all builds to the showdown when Drummond calls Brady to the stand, turning the sparring into a knock-down, drag-out, heavyweight war, and it is EVERYTHING you want it to be. And while I said earlier that the script is nothing special as far as a courtroom drama is concerned, it is special in that it deftly manages to balance the delicacies inherent in the situation; Brady is not wrong for having faith or even for being passionate about it, he's wrong for putting himself above his faith, assuming that he and he alone is the correct arbiter of God's word, and for turning faith -- a force meant to bring joy and peace -- into something hateful and dangerous. And then the movie, in its final minutes, gives the audience a surprise second showdown, this time between Drummond and Hornbeck, the agnostic versus the cynical atheist. Because as much as Brady's dogma is shown to be cancerous and terrible, Hornbeck's unyielding misanthropy is no better. It is just as rigid and dogmatic as Brady's belief system is, and Drummond calls out Hornbeck for it. Though much shorter, it is still a fantastic few minutes, watching Kelly and Tracy trade punches. It balances out all the arguments and, in the final shot, suggests a middle ground; Drummond literally puts Darwin's Origin Of Species in one hand, the Bible in the other, weighs them, then slams them together and walks out of the empty courtroom. The message is that the world need not be black or white, this or that. Two truths can exist simultaneously. There is room for both. There is a middle ground, if people can only be courageous enough to get off their precious perches and move towards it. It is through the acting with which Wind succeeds. It will hold you captive, but it is a captivity you'll succumb to eagerly. This is an actor's movie, and proud of it. All you need to do is sit back and enjoy.