Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

didi-5 As a standalone TV movie, this version of 'Inherit The Wind' has some value, and has interesting leads (Jason Robards and Kirk Douglas). The trouble is it doesn't quite work, and was preceded by perhaps the greatest version (with Spencer Tracy and Fredric March) and followed by a superior television production (with Jack Lemmon and George C Scott).This version seems slow and, because it was made with commercial breaks in mind, doesn't flow that well even if you watch it with the breaks omitted. For a script and film which relies on some quite deep dialogue which requires some concentration to keep the interest and the mood, having the breaks was a major mistake.Not the best of the three versions by any means, but interesting to see. It just isn't the version I'll be going back to the most. Robards is OK, Douglas less so (he feels miscast), but the film is a bit of a turkey.

bkoganbing My thoughts on this remake of Inherit The Wind and the slant that it was given arise from one thing only, the possibility in early 1988 that Pat Robertson would be a presidential candidate. The main difference between the classic 1960 version and this television one is that Matthew Harrison Brady is considering yet a fourth run for the presidency. To bring the country back to God, or at least his version of God. Listening to Kirk Douglas as Brady and remembering the times that this television film was made, the context is essential to understand what was going on.In real life of course William Jennings Bryan was thoroughly cured of the presidential bug by 1925. He was still very much an influence in the party, especially in rural areas such as Eastern Tennessee where the Scopes Trial took place. In real life Bryan would have been 68 in 1928 had he lived and I'm willing to bet he'd have fought mightily against the nomination of the Roman Catholic Alfred E. Smith.In this version a lot of business is eliminated including the contempt citation that defense lawyer Henry Drummond is given and a favorite scene of mine where Brady is holding court for the press in the hotel restaurant, enjoying heaping helpfuls of roast beef and mashed potatoes while Drummond sits in the foreground with a tuna sandwich and a glass or milk.The confrontation climax with Brady and Drummond is still basically the same with the added dialog about Brady maybe running for president again to bring the USA back to God. Again written for the 1988 television audience.Jason Robards, Jr. is far closer to the truth of Clarence Darrow in his Henry Drummond than Spencer Tracy. Darrow was not as noble a creature as Tracy makes him out, but his performance did get him an Academy Award nomination. Robards is a lot more sneaky, still for me the best interpretation of Clarence Darrow is Orson Welles as Jonathan Wilk in Compulsion.Kirk Douglas gets reunited with his Spartacus co-star Jean Simmons playing Mrs. Brady. By all accounts the real Mrs. Bryan was a very wise woman capable of a brake on her high flying husband when needed.When I wrote a review for the 1960 Inherit the Wind which I did see in theaters back in the day, I said that the film was done from a quaint nostalgia point of view about what silly things we believed and fought over and how America had grown up in the interim. In 1960 who would have believed that fundamentalist Christianity would have a stranglehold on one of our major parties. This version of Inherit The Wind sadly takes that into account.

SteveHoweTG I know, I know: The Kramer & Tracy original has become a true classic, but...I prefer THIS little masterpiece. There is a lot of little great points that makes this TV release much more than that: a) The characters performance. Not only Kirk Douglas (he really fit his character), not only Robards (so often a secondary actor), but also Jean Simmons, Darren McGavin and the Judge, even the little Rachel Brown or Kyle Secor. We can guess a master hand behind all these. b) The characters are very very well developed: Mathew Brady has much more power than Fredric March in 60s version (even we can intimate a little with him in moments as his speech at church), Robards owes nothing to the great Tracy. The journalist is here more interesting (more heavy, more cynical, more aged-atheist) than Gene Kelly. It's a good point the youthfulness and artlessness of both the teacher and fiancée c) The director, thought obviously more limited by budget, is capable to offer an equilibrated narration and some great moments (such as the confronted reception of Brady and Drummond)Sometimes we were more impressed by the version the first saw, if this is good. Maybe this is also the case (I saw first the Green film).

Ed I thought Jason Robards was good as Darrow even if he didn't erase the memory of Spencer Tracy from my mind but I thought the usually fine Kirk Douglas was miscast as William Jennings Bryan (who was a glutton, not a movie star!) and didn't come close to Frederic March who even looked like Bryan. (Admittedly, Spencer always looked like Spencer.) He was reduced to playing the part as if it was Elmer Gantry and when Jason said that "a giant once lived in that body!" I didn't believe him for one second.And where the old black and white version suggested the oppressive heat and humidity of Dayton, Tennessee, this one didn't even come close. Darren McGavin who played H. L. Mencken was quite good though and I've always adored Jean Simmons in most of what she did. Kyle Secor was the Scopes character (I mistook him for Matthew Broderick) and was very adequate. I'd be interested to see (again?) the 1965 TV version with Melvyn Douglas and Ed Begley but I don't remember it at all if I did see it.