(4/9/2009) Going through the reviews on Amazon, you'll find that there are quite a few reviewers who take issue with "Inherit the Wind" not being a literal re-enactment of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Well, breaking news, folks: there's this little thing called "artistic license".

This film is not intended to be a dead-on retelling of the Scopes Monkey Trial, but is merely BASED ON it. As another reviewer so deftly pointed out, this is one of the reasons that they didn't use the names "Darrow", "Bryant", etc. Also, though the trial is the central event of the whole movie, the script and original play are far more concerned with the character dynamics within the courtroom.

If you want the true-life facts of the Scopes Monkey Trial, you can break out a textbook, dig up a court transcript, whatever. But watching a film that claims to be neither a literal biography nor historical documentary, and then picking it apart because it doesn't jibe with real life events, just makes you sound like a jag-off.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of Inherit the Wind   from Amazon.Com!

Created May 05, 2009 at 9:44pm • Submit your own review...