Inherit the Wind

Inherit the Wind (1955), a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee [National Theatre, 806 perf.] When Bertram Cates (Karl Light) is brought to trial for violating his state's law against teaching Darwinian evolution, the great liberal, flamboyant lawyer Henry Drummond (Paul Muni) leads his defense. Heading the prosecution is the equally flamboyant orator and politician Matthew Harrison Brady (Ed Begley). The appearance of these men brings the press en masse, led by the famed curmudgeon from Baltimore, E. K. Hornbeck (Tony Randall). The trial quickly becomes a circus, in which Drummond devastates Brady. But when it is over, with Cates found guilty and given a token fine, and with Brady dead, Drummond surprises Hornbeck by coming to the defense of Brady and the Bible. “You never pushed a noun against a verb except to blow something up,” he says, insisting every man has the right to be wrong and that Brady's fault was that “he was looking for God too high up and far away.” Closely following the events of the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial in Tennessee, the authors made little attempt to hide the fact that Drummond was Clarence Darrow; Brady, William Jennings Bryan; and Hornbeck, H. L. Mencken. Writing in the Daily News, John Chapman hailed the Herman Shumlin–Margo Jones production as “one of the most exciting dramas of the last decade.” A Broadway revival in 1996 with George C. Scott and Charles Durning as Drummond and Brady was very popular but closed prematurely because of Scott's health. It was his last Broadway appearance.

Inherit the Wind may refer to:

• Inherit the Wind (play), a 1955 play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee
• Inherit the Wind (1960 film), directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, Harry Morgan, and Dick York Written by Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith.
• Inherit the Wind (1965 film), starring Melvyn Douglas, Ed Begley, and Dick York
• Inherit the Wind (1988 film), starring Jason Robards, Kirk Douglas, and Darren McGavin
• Inherit the Wind (1999 film), starring Jack Lemmon, George C. Scott, and Beau Bridges

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