INHERIT THE WIND

Based on the popular stage play of the same name, the film "Inherit the Wind" is Hollywood’s version of the famous Tennessee “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925.

In the film, the characters remain recognizable despite name changes (to prevent possible legal trouble for the playwright). Real life defendant Scopes was renamed Cates, actual defense attorney Clarence Darrow was renamed “Bulldog” Drummond, popular journalist HL Mencken was renamed Hornbeck, and famous prosecutor William Jennings Bryan was renamed Matthew Brady. The film was faithful to the broad outlines of the historical event, but it flagrantly distorted the details.

1) Cates/Scopes is shown in the film being arrested (in the act of teaching evolution) by a grim posse of morally offended citizens.

No effort was ever made to enforce Tennessee's "anti-evolution" legislation, known as the Butler Act. The issue was initially brought to light -- and this was never mentioned in the play or the film -- by an American Civil Liberties Union advertisement for someone to challenge the law. Several citizens of Dayton (renamed Hillsboro in the play), hoping publicity would benefit their town, approached Scopes as a candidate. Scopes was actually a mathematics teacher and had only briefly substituted as a biology teacher. He did not even remember teaching evolution, but he had used the standard textbook (Hunter's Civic Biology), which contained a short section on the subject.

Scopes was surprised during the trial by how knowledgeable the student witnesses were, and he speculated that the students must have gained their knowledge of evolution somewhere else and mistakenly associated it with his class. Scopes himself knew very little about evolution, so the defense attorneys kept him off the stand, where his lack of knowledge (and his uncertainty as to whether he had actually taught the subject at all) might prove embarrassing.

2) Cates/Scopes is depicted in the film as being imprisoned, and hung in effigy.

In reality, Scopes was free after his indictment. He traveled to New York to meet the ACLU Executive Board. Then he returned to Dayton, where he remained friendly with the townspeople. He even greeted the visitors streaming into town.

3) In the film, Brady/Bryan demands a harsher penalty for Cates/Scopes.

Violation of the Butler Act carried no prison sentence, and Bryan actually argued against even a monetary penalty. When the judge did eventually levy a $100 fine, Bryan actually offered to pay that himself.

4) In the film, Drummond/Darrow comes into town late in the evening with little notice. Brady/Bryan is adored and applauded, but Drummond/Darrow is shunned by the townspeople, and is even called “Devil” by a screaming little girl.

Scopes attended a dinner given by the Dayton Progressive Club in honor of Bryan's arrival. Bryan (famous for remembering people) recognized Scopes as one of the graduates he had addressed at a high school commencement six years earlier. Bryan's kindness and sincerity were acknowledged even by his enemies, and he spoke amiably to Scopes, insisting they could be friends despite their disagreement.

Darrow was greeted on his arrival in Dayton by a crowd equally as large and friendly as the one that had greeted Bryan. Darrow was honored at a Progressive Club dinner just as Bryan was. Being a folksy, small-town type himself, Darrow gained the good graces of the locals, and many of the spectators at the trial showed support for the defense.

5) In the film, Drummond/Darrow defends Cates/Scopes alone.

Darrow assembled a defense team that included Arthur Hays of the ACLU, international lawyer Dudley Malone (who had served as Bryan's Undersecretary of State in the Wilson Administration), and constitutional expert John Neal. Scopes later wrote that he couldn't have done better if he'd had all the money in the world.

6) In the film, Cates/Scopes loses his teaching job.

Scopes’ job was still open to him even after the verdict. However, he was offered a scholarship for graduate school, and studied geology at the University of Chicago. He later had an active career as a geologist.

7) The film’s plot elements included the lonely stand of the brave individualist against the small-minded bigotry of the townspeople, and Cates’/Scope’s fear as he waited in his prison cell, with the threat of ruin hanging over his head.

That was pure fabrication. Scopes was not living in fear. For example, during one lunchtime recess, Scopes went swimming with two of the young assistant prosecutors (one of whom was Bryan's son). They were late getting back to the courtroom, and the reprimand Scopes received from defense attorney Hays was the roughest treatment he received during the entire trial.

8) The play gives Drummond/Darrow a worthy adversary, but it belittles Bryan. The film actually distorts and ridicules its Brady/Bryan figure.

The trial transcript reveals that during the trial, Bryan was exuberant, funny, discerning, and focused. Many reporters shared the prejudices of HL Mencken, who ridiculed Bryan in print. One reporter never even attended the trial sessions, remarking, "I don't have to know what's going on; I know what my paper wants me to write." During the famous cross-examination by Darrow, only six reporters were present; the others were taking a long lunch, thinking that the most important portions of the trial had passed (Scopes later helped the absentee reporters file their stories). The number of reporters dwindled during the trial, and even Mencken did not stay through the whole eight days.

9) The film depicted Brady/Bryan as a biblical fundamentalist unfamiliar with the theory of evolution.

Bryan (who was a member of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science) was quite familiar with Darwin, and actually understood the evolution doctrine better than his adversaries. Bryan was not a biblical literalist. He volunteered to Darrow (it was not wormed out of him, as the play suggests) that the "days" in the biblical account of creation were not twenty-four hour days. He did not insist that the "sun stood still" in Joshua 10:13, but explained that the Bible was using archaic language. Still, he did not yield on his belief in miracles and the primacy of divine power. His supporters were disappointed over Bryan's testimony (the play makes much of the crowd's turning on him) but it was not because he looked stupid as a defender of crude fundamentalism … it was because he was NOT a defender of crude fundamentalism.

10) In the film, Brady/Bryan and his beliefs were crushed.

Untrue. Scopes himself remarked that Bryan (the Great Commoner) remained amazingly exuberant and buoyant during the trial.

And while the anti-evolutionary cause may have suffered embarrassment, the guilty verdict was overturned a year later (only on a technicality). Several state laws similar to the Butler Act were finally declared unconstitutional in 1968.

11) In the film, the judge prevented Brady/Bryan from delivering his lengthy closing statement.

It is true that Bryan was unable to deliver the closing statement, but NOT because the judge cut short the trial. Rather, after the questioning of Bryan (which was stricken from the record the following day), Darrow accepted a guilty verdict in order to move to appeal. This removed the need for closing statements. Darrow later admitted that the defense had purposely deprived Bryan of his closing statement, out of fear of his legendary oratorical powers.

12) In the film, Brady/Bryan had a mortal stroke in the courtroom.

Again, untrue. Bryan died five days after the trial. His death may have been hastened due to exhaustion and stress, but he also suffered from diabetes, which he did not carefully control. He passed away peacefully during an afternoon nap and after a heavy meal. The film’s irreverent line spoken by the cynical Hornbeck at Brady's death … ("He died of a busted belly") was actually Darrow's private remark upon hearing that Bryan had died.

13) Even in small things, the film and play diminish Bryan. Drummond/Darrow derides the honorary title of "Colonel" that Hillsboro bestows upon Brady/Bryan, protesting, "I am not familiar with Mr. Brady's military record." The play's Brady is mothered by a wife who cradles him, and calls him "Baby".

In fact, Bryan had indeed been a colonel in the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War (though he never saw combat). Bryan's wife was actually a semi-invalid of whom he was protective and solicitous.

14) Both the play and the movie vastly oversimplify religion's relation to evolution. The play insists that there is no contradiction between Christianity and Darwinism.

The defense, both actual and fictional, wanted to isolate “ignorant biblical literalism” as the only kind of religion that disputes evolution. They have been joined in this view by many mainstream religious leaders in the past seventy-five years.

Ultimately, the theme of Inherit the Wind is not the truth/error in the theory of evolution, but the "right to think," and even the "right to be wrong."