(Chosen by John!)
Inherit the Wind is, considered as an adaptation of the famous 1925 Scopes trial, overly-dramatic to the point of cartoonishness. Leaving aside the fudged and invented facts about motives and proceedings, the air within the courtroom is one of open combat between Spencer Tracy and Frederick March, well beyond even the utter pig circus of the real thing. The literal anti-evolution carnival in the first act cannot compare for spectacle against the two men loudly and brashly raising objections over minor infractions of legal procedure as prelude to massive spiritual violations as they double down on lingering personal animosity and purest ideology. What starts as a trial over a man violating a state law about teaching evolution swiftly forgets the man himself except as a cudgel against the opposing counsel in a war of words over fundamentalism vs critical thought, which too eventually falls to a series of verbal body blows that act to destroy the recipient's reputation amongst an undignified public far more than serve whatever judicial purpose the trial started within. It's a battle of twin acting giants with a sweltering courtroom as the battleground, and firmly held beliefs about the fate of America wielded as weapons - spectacle enough to whip the viewer into a furor strong as any rousing, corrupted round of John Brown's Body.
Where Stanley Kramer and original playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee keep the cartoonishness from overwhelming is through the careful consideration afforded towards balancing the mania with the melancholic, in guiding the viewer to realize just what this all cost. It's easy to look towards March's blustering, belching, platitude-spewing Matthew Harrison Brady making an utter fool of himself in the prosecutor's box and witness stand, consider the roaring, foaming crowds he inspires to deeper wells of hatred, and think the film simply oriented against fundamentalism in its religious form, wailing against an easy target like a freshly tuned-in teenage atheist. Matt, however, is frequently shown to quiet considerably when away from the courtroom and his masses, reminiscing over times gone by with Henry Drummond and nursing a deepset fear of losing the spotlight in his old age - it's hard to consider him a wholly good man as Drummond insists he once was or had the potential to be, but the depths of vulnerability and moral terror March draws from the script's already-prominent sympathetic angle makes it hard to consider his ultimate fate anything other than tragedy. And while the public of Heavenly Hillsboro have no single voice (aside from maybe Claude Akins' Reverend Brown, who loses the people when he damns his only daughter to hell in a fit of brimstone preaching), it is clear they're easily co-opted by whoever shouts loudest and makes the cleverest points in the moment, only to revert back to their hateful ways once the fire of the moment dies down. No wonder that in a film with Gene Kelly delivering snappy witticisms and withering speeches in his ever scene, they're still easily pulled into a dynamic between cheering Brady and Drummond.
The way Kramer treats Drummond underscores the story's greatest tragedy. His highly active camera, sliding through crowds of people to find the best extreme close-ups, the most impactful arrangement of figures in tight quarters even with substantial distance between them, loves best to work its magic on Drummond, punctuating his snappy remarks to indicate skill beyond Brady's need for an audience to sound like he's made a good point. Tracy's acting already exudes confidence and intelligence of the highest order, but the camera positions him as hero of heroes for recognizing the non-reason motivating the town and practically showers him in non-verbal praises for being the only person to call it out... and incidentally papers over his own failings. After all, when he gets a good head of steam, he can pontificate just as well as Brady. He introduces an air of casualness to an already loose courtroom and embraces the local system's peculiarities when extended towards him as a matter of fairness. He keeps his head about him for an admirably long time, but his points drift away from defending his client and towards arguing the merits of enlightenment well before he feels the sting of Brady bullying an innocent girl to tears and blocking his best witnesses, and resorts to hammering Brady with go-nowhere stock-standard atheist rebuttals to easily disputed aspects of the Bible. The game of set-em-ups-knock-em-downs pushes so far, it utterly destroys Brady's reputation where nothing else could, and leads into the desperation that triggers his untimely death.
None of this to claim Drummond had the wrong idea, or is somehow to blame where the film avoids total blame of those it frames as in the wrong. The problem lies not with Drummond as a man, but with the situation he had to navigate, which would've broken or subsumed one of lesser character before first act's close. Though Lawrence later outright specified he and Lee wrote the play as a subtle means of critiquing McCarthyism a la The Crucible, I think the work functions equally well as a straightforward critique of the media circus around the original trial, or the rhythms of court dramas especially when considering Kramer's work here, or any quagmire wherein the spectacle of ferocious battle overtakes level heads and an honest sense of law. The trial and public demanded harder hits, wittier comebacks, a total destruction of an idol representing one side or another, and because Brady had a softer belly and a bigger obvious weakness in his dependence on a flock, he fell beneath the weight of Drummond's blows before Drummond could realize he too stepped over the line and acted uncouth in the same manner as all around him.
Consider the way he weighs Darwin and God's word in his hands at the close, before slapping them together and marching out to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic. Regardless of where man came from, whether the gradual course of evolution from "lower" lifeforms over billions of years or instantly through the divine hand of the Lord from naught but dust and clay; what comfort or insight holds either answer when the fight to prove one or the other cost a man his life? Or a town its dignity? Or a family its stability? Or a state its convenient legal blindness for decades? Or the historical record a clean view of a symbolic hoax trial? Or an industry its best minds? Or a nation its sense of trust and stability? The fervor of the fight can only encourage its participants to destroy in the course of chasing victory, regardless whether they intend nobility or ill.
Causes deserve their strident champions, but they also deserve an arena in which clear minds and well-spoken exchanges may play out free from all sense of clashing swords. The public deserves a judicial branch predicated on preventing the ludicrousness of the monkey trials, in real or fictional forms. We all especially deserve a life apart from fanaticism and tribalism and all the other assorted -isms that make a life part of some poison mob instead of the worthwhile thing it truly is. Kramer makes this point by taking you to the edge, exciting you enough that you'll cheer on Drummond's legal strategy the same way the townsfolk cheer on Brady's nonsense, and then hits you with the revelation of just what's happened. I initially called it a shovel to the face, but a more fitting analogy is likening it to a rock sinking to the pit of your stomach, never making itself evident until the full weight is settled right at the bottom. We must have a care for how we tolerate foolishness from even our greatest allies, else we too inherit the wind and become masterless servants.
(Talk about one director making two radically different pieces a few years apart. I can see all the skill in framing and editing and conducting actors and incorporating music Kramer brought to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, even the particular manner of working humor into proceedings - but wat a wholly different effect!)
4.5/5
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