MovieChat Forums > Alleged (2013) Discussion > It had better be good to match up to 'In...

It had better be good to match up to 'Inherit the Wind'

posted 14 years ago by BobStage
4 replies | jump to latest

I fear that my love for that older film will prejudice me against this one. However, it should be interesting to see Colm Meaney as Mencken and Brian Dennehy as Darrow.

[–] inthegripofahurricane 14 years ago

It looks as if they will be entirely different films. ITW was a mannered polemic against McCarthyism. Much as I doted on it as a child, with its snappy dialogue and timeless performance by Tracy, I'd have to concede that its hamfisted style hasn't aged well. But Alleged promises to be a romantic drama, not a revision of ITW in any way.

Dennehy is an inspired choice for Darrow! I can't wait to see him in this. In the stills I can see that he already has Darrow's body language nailed.

[–] BobStage 14 years ago

Hasn't aged well?

I still maintain that it's one of the best films I've ever seen. Maybe some of the religious fanaticism looks dated, but the dialogue and performances are many steps better than some of the more popular films going right now.

[–] inthegripofahurricane 14 years ago

I still find much to savor in the Darrow-related dialogue, Spencer Tracy blows me away, and March and his real-life wife Florence Eldridge were marvelous together, but the scenes with Dick York, Claude Akins and Donna Anderson were pretty hokey, IMO, and the whole production has a stagy, didactic quality typical of more than one Stanley Kramer film. (Which is, again, not to say that I dislike Stanley Kramer, quite the contrary.)

[–] JoeB131 12 years ago

My impression was that they tried to actually do a historical version of the film that was accurate from a Christian point of view. So the history was actually right on the money.

I think where they got a bit hamfisted was in pointing out that Darwin's theories led to social Darwinism and Eugenics, which it did, but that was the result of the theory being misused, not a problem with the theory itself.

Of the "three guys you've heard of" in this film (Meany, Dennehy and THompson) Dennehy probably puts in the weakest performance. Like he was just saying his lines and waiting to cash his check. Thompson and Meaney were a lot better.