"Inherit the Wind" is pretty accurate though. And frankly, Colm Meaney will have a very hard time imo playing the role that Gene Kelly made his own. Kelly was Oscar-worthy, and my favourite part of ITW.
"Accurate"? Come on, don't make me laugh. The only things that was "accurate" about
Inherit the Wind at all was the judge holding Darrow in contempt of court -- otherwise, that ENTIRE movie was fictionalized.
Scopes was never arrested by the police in his classroom. And not just that: Scopes was never even
arrested at all. He was never thrown in jail. The entire scheme was his idea and the rest of the Dayton townspeople's. The whole idea was to deliberately attack the creationist law so as to attract more publicity and business for the town.
Scopes did not have an overzealous preacher father-in-law.
There were never any angry mobs out to get Scopes' head. Like I said: the whole town was on Scopes' side.
Darrow's interrogation of Bryan took place out on the front lawn, and not inside the actual courthouse.
Bryan died
in his sleep, not right there in the courtroom.
So much for "accurate".
And honestly, this new movie looks even worse. Why do they have to make the Scopes Trial into a romantic melodrama? That just ain't gonna fly.
"What I don't understand is how we're going to stay alive this winter."
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Edward_de_Vere
10 years ago
And honestly, this new movie looks even worse. Why do they have to make the Scopes Trial into a romantic melodrama? That just ain't gonna fly
You have that right. This movie was terrible.
At least
Inherit the Wind doesn't pretend to be a history lesson, the characters' names are changed, and it should be obvious that it's as loosely based on the Scopes trial as
All the King's Men is based on Huey Long's career. Sure, it has an agenda, but at least it presents itself as a work of fiction.
Alleged pretends to be a "balanced" and "historically accurate" account of the Scopes trial (albeit told through the eyes of fictional characters who create a bad soap opera in the process). Then it goes on to portray Darrow as even more of an incompetent buffoon than "Brady" (Bryan stand-in) in
Inherit the Wind. And where
Inherit the Wind portrays Brady as the voice of bigotry and Drummond (Darrow) as the voice of reason and humanism, this movie does the reverse, albeit in a cheaper, ham-fisted way. I should have expected as much from a movie starring former Senator Fred Thompson.
So we're still waiting for an accurate portrayal of the Scopes trial on screen.
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