Inherit the Wind

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Inherit the Wind is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee. It is frequently cited as being a fictionalized account of the Scopes Trial. The play first appeared on Broadway in January 1955.

The real-life opposing attorneys William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow are roughly portrayed as Matthew Harrison Brady and Henry Drummond respectively, while John Scopes is remade in the character Bertram Cates and journalist H.L. Mencken becomes E.K. Hornbeck. But despite the similarities, the play is not intended to be a historical documentary-drama, but a fictional social commentary on McCarthyism based loosely on an historical event. Although the play reflects on what has been claimed as one of the darkest events in American history, it has been hailed one of the great American plays of the 20th Century, with themes about religious tolerance, belief and freedom of thought that have considerable resonance to this day.

The play's title comes from Proverbs 11:29, which in the King James Bible reads:

He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind:
and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart

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Inherit the Wind and history

Inherit the Wind, in both the movies and the play, takes much poetic license, meaning that the writers do not try to present things as they actually happened, but instead use key events to craft a story, embellishing them according to the needs of drama. It is, like Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, a social drama, which is a literary device wherein historical events are retold as an exploration of events and ideas of the times.

The play was intended as a critical representation of the anti-communist congressional investigations of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and Senator Joseph McCarthy, with the Brady character representing McCarthy and his assistant Roy Cohn. In this case, authors used the historical Scopes trial as the background for a drama that comments on and explores the threats to intellectual freedom presented by the anti-communist hysteria. In particular, Brady's final fit of ranting and raving in the courtroom has no counterpart in the 1925 trial, but corresponds closely to McCarthy's behavior on June 17, 1954, when the Army-McCarthy Hearings were brought to an abrupt end. The script of the play uses multiple excerpts taken directly from the actual court transcripts.

The play includes a note from the playwrights reminding the reader that "Inherit the Wind is not history." They state that the characters have different names from the historical figures on whom they are based, and that the play "does not pretend to be journalism." Rather, they argue that "the issues of [Bryan and Darrow's] conflict have acquired new dimension and meaning" in the thirty years since the actual courtroom clash. They do not set the play in 1925 but instead say that "It might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow." This timelessness of the setting could be seen as a warning about repeating the wrongs of the past, which, without vigilance, always have the possibility of recurring. During the play's original Broadway run it was widely understood in the McCarthyism context, but subsequent interpretations have focused more on the literal plot, given the resurgent relevance of the creation-evolution controversy after the end of McCarthyism.

Despite the comments of the authors, much of the marketing of the play today portrays it as a basically true account of the Scopes Trial, and many still unknowingly interpret the work as a documentary-drama. The Scopes trial did not appear in the Encyclopædia Britannica until 1957 when the inclusion was spurred by the successful run of Inherit the Wind on Broadway, which was mentioned in the citation. It was not until the 1960s that the Scopes trial began to be mentioned in the history textbooks of American high schools and colleges, usually as an example of the conflict between fundamentalists and modernists, and often in sections that also talked about the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the South. Most entries followed the play's lead and focused on Darrow reducing Bryan to a figure of ridicule and several substituted the substance of the drama for the reality of the actual trial.

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Inherit the Wind in film

The play has been made into three made-for-television movies and a 1960 screen film. The movie stars Spencer Tracy (Drummond), Fredric March (Brady), Gene Kelly (Hornbeck), Dick York (Cates), Harry Morgan (Judge), Donna Anderson (Rachel Brown), Claude Akins (Rev. Brown), Noah Beery Jr. (Stebbins), Florence Eldridge (Mrs. Brady) and Jimmy Boyd. It was adapted by Nedrick Young (originally as Nathan E. Douglas) and Harold Jacob Smith (Howard) and directed by Stanley Kramer.

The movie was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Spencer Tracy), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Film Editing and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

The 1960 film makes several departures from the play. Most notably , at least to an extent, it tones down the single-mindedness of the characters. For example, Kramer adds the "Golden Dancer" scene, in which Brady and Drummond sit in rocking chairs on the boarding house porch reminiscing about their past friendship and their reasons for participating in the trial. Likewise, the "Baltimore Herald" reporter, E.K. Hornbeck (based on the real-life journalist H.L. Mencken) is presented as an intolerent atheist in the play, but in the movie, a scene near the end tones down his views as well. Unlike the play, in which Cates and Rachel leave the town of Hillsboro, the film depicts Bertram Cates staying.

The screenplay also incorporates more of the actual trial transcript than does the stage play, most notably the incident where Clarence Darrow is cited for contempt of court. There is also a sequence at night where a mob harasses Cates at the jail and then threatens Drummond at his hotel. That same night, a conversation with Hornbeck inspires Drummond to call Brady as a witness, and expose the flaws in his literal interpretation of the Bible.

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Differences between Inherit the Wind and history

Inherit the Wind portrays the Cates/Scopes character as unfairly persecuted. In the actual event, although the ACLU was certainly looking for a teacher to figure in a test case, it was a group of Dayton businessmen who persuaded Scopes to be volunteer, in the hope that the publicity surrounding the trial would help to revive the town's ailing economy and status. Scopes was never jailed or even in the slightest danger of being jailed.

Inherit the Wind has been criticized for unfairly portraying or stereotyping Christians as hostile, hate-filled bigots. Thus there is Reverend Jeremiah Brown, who whips up his congregation into a frenzy and calls down hellfire on his own daughter for being engaged to Cates. There were no such reverend, prayer meeting or girlfriend in the real Dayton. The townspeople were generally very kind and cordial to Drummond/Darrow in both the fiction and reality. The 1960 film version attenuates the hostility by having Matthew Harrison Brady (loosely based on Bryan) intervene and moderate the prayer meeting. Later, Brady's wife in turn acts as a moderator upon him. Speaking of the townspeople, the real Darrow said:

I don’t know as I was ever in a community in my life where my religious ideas differed as widely from the great mass as I have found them since I have been in Tennessee. Yet I came here a perfect stranger and I can say what I have said before that I have not found upon any body’s part — any citizen here in this town or outside the slightest discourtesy. I have been treated better, kindlier and more hospitably than I fancied would have been the case in the north (trial transcript, pp. 225–226).

The film depicts this hospitality in the scene where Drummond first meets the Hillsboro town mayor, and also in Drummond's interactions with Cates's students.

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Other differences

In the following notes, (M) refers to the 1960 movie version, and (P) to the published play script. (M/P) means the material appears in both versions.

  • (M) When Bertram Cates is arrested in the classroom and the sheriff asks his name, Cates replies "Come off it Sam, you've known me all my life." In fact Scopes was born and raised in Paducah, Kentucky and only moved to Dayton after graduating from university in 1924.
  • (M/P) In answer to a question from Drummond concerning the Origin of Species, Brady says he has no interest in "the pagan hypotheses of that book". In reality, Bryan was very familiar with Darwin's writings and quoted them extensively.
  • (M/P) In answer to a question from Drummond, Brady declares that sexual intercourse was original sin, which does not comply with Christianity. In reality sex was never mentioned during the confrontation between Bryan and Darrow.
  • (M/P) Brady betrays Cates' girlfriend, the local preacher's daughter, by questioning her in court about information she told him in confidence. In real life, Scopes didn't have a girlfriend at all, and Bryan didn't betray anyone.
  • (M/P) When the verdict is announced, Brady protests, loudly and angrily, that the fine is too lenient. In reality, Scopes was fined the minimum amount allowed under the law, and Bryan offered to pay the fine.
  • (M/P) Drummond is portrayed as being involved in the trial out of his concern to defend Cates from being jailed by bigots. In reality Scopes was never jailed, and never in danger of being jailed. As for Darrow, as he later acknowledged in a letter to H.L. Mencken and in his autobiography, he was there simply to attack Bryan and the fundamentalists.
  • (M) The plot line regarding Mr and Mrs Stebbins and the death of their son by drowning is allegedly based on a true incident, only it was in fact the event which is said to have motivated George Rappleyea to turn against fundamentalist Christianity, and happened several years earlier — before Scopes ever moved to Dayton.
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Inherit the Wind on television

In 1965 the play aired on television with Melvyn Douglas as Drummond and Ed Begley as Brady. In 1988, a rewrite of the Kramer movie shown on NBC starred Jason Robards as Drummond and Kirk Douglas as Brady. Another version aired in 1999 with another pair of Oscar winners, Jack Lemmon amd George C. Scott, as Drummond and Brady respectively. For their performance, Robards won an Emmy and Lemmon won a Golden Globe award. The 1988 production also won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special.

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External links and references

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