Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Am I Missing Something?

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

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.

Weakest of the three versions of the story of the Scopes Trial this version suffers from shortening, rewriting and worst of all commercials.This isn't to say its bad, its not. The problem is that compared to the original Spencer Tracy film this film comes off as a good summer stock to the originals Broadway show case.The cast is game. Kirk Douglas is perhaps a bit odd at first as the William Jennings Bryan character, but after a few minutes he slips into the groove and all is fine. Jason Robards' is excellent, unfortunately there is something about the way this was put together for TV that kills his momentum in the home stretch.Seeing this with out commercials doesn't help since the pauses still are there.If its on try it, but if you must see some version of this go for one of the other two.

Although it was not as good as the first, Inherit the Wind was as enjoyable. The performances changed the characters without changing the script much, and the acting was strong enough to pull it off. I did like both leads and have seen this version 5+ times. I have rented them both back to back, and enjoyed both versions as if they were totally different movies-believing this one can stand on it's own.I have gone back and forth on which is better.

Jason Robards, and Kirk Douglas, make this film STAND out, it is much better than the original and has the cast to back it up. We all know of the trial, and we all know that is was more or less a publicity stunt for the town of Dayton.The teacher who was supposed to teach evolution was really just a wayward man, traveling and he was a good choice for all this to happen. Again Great TV Movie, rent it or watch it when it comes on!!!