Bert Cates (Dick York) is a teacher in the small town of Hillsboro in the 1920’s who has decided to teach his children about Darwin’s theory of evolution. However this is a violation of state law and he is promptly arrested and set to face trial with some high profile men arguing for and against his freedom. Famous defence attorney Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) has been persuaded to take on the case by newspaper man E. K. Hornbeck (Gene Kelly). Whilst presidential candidate Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March) will argue against. 

This 1960 film was based on the 1955 play of the same name which in turn was based on the real life trial that took place in 1925. The 1925 trial was between the State of Tennessee and teacher John Thomas Scopes and featured presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan arguing against famous defence attorney Clarence Darrow. Whilst there are large amounts of similarities, creative license was also taken in a number of ways as the story was not meant to be a historical account but more of a timely argument for the acceptance of free thinking in a time when America was in the thrall of McCarthyism. 

Since this films release there have been two further remakes of the film. The first in 1988 with Kirk Douglas and Jason Robards and the second in 1999 with Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott. The fact is that now in 2022 the film still seems prescient with religious fundamentalism impeding free thinking over the interpretation of a text written thousands of years ago. 

The film itself is a grandiose court room drama featuring the sort of grandstanding that surely would never be allowed in a court room and the type of speech’s that only elegant orators could think of. Spencer Tracy and Fredric March chew scenery and spit elegant vitriol at each other whilst sweating in the baking heat of the courtroom. The end result is not wrapped in a simple bow either. The fact that it calls into question the ridiculousness of religious zealotry in my mind can only be a good thing although clearly despite their being multiple iterations of the story it seems to have had little real world impact. 

Whilst the story and acting are worth the ticket value alone the most beautiful facet of the film for me was the photography. Shot in a crisp black and white the cinematographer Ernest Laszlo has decided that all characters in frame must be in focus at all times. The result is mesmerising and beautiful. And then it is capped with a number of brilliant dissolves and cuts between scenes. The end result is that a film set in the main in one large court room takes on a more epic quality. 

A classic worth seeking out.