Many people love black and white films. There are some films that most people have watched, at some time in their lives. These are classics that we have all heard of. It is a very interesting experience to revisit these classics only to find that they have taken on totally different meanings and messages.
I have always loved black and white films. From "Bringing up Baby" to "12 Angry Men," from "To Kill a Mockingbird" to "Dial M for Murder"...there is something about the lack of color that leads to an explosion of imagination.
Revisiting a film recently that I had watched and enjoyed as a teenager was a revealing experience. Suddenly, the messages that had seemed so clear have taken on all new meanings. And more importantly, with a new critical perspective gained from events of past years, a little investigation revealed a very interesting story, one of which I feel many readers may be unaware.
The film I am talking about is "Inherit the Wind." It is probably one of my favorite films. I have a soft spot for Spencer Tracy. He is a stupendous actor. And Frederick March and Dick York, later to be the beleaguered husband in "Bewitched..." And Gene Kelly, not tap dancing, but playing the role of the journalist H.L. Mencken... That is, this film has a full star cast.
However, it is not the actors, but rather the story that catches the imagination...The story of a clash between religion and science, between bigoted, blind belief and rational agnosticism or at least, rational science. Growing up in a household where Darwin was king, there was no question as to whose side I was on when I first watched the film. And who would want to stand against Spencer Tracy anyway? With his wry humor and his cutting lines? Naturally, he has all the best lines.
The story is the story of what was known as the Monkey Trial. In 1924 the Tennessee Butler Act was introduced; this act prohibited teachers in public schools from teaching anything that did not agree with the Biblical account of creation. In Dayton, Tennessee a teacher was accused of teaching Darwinism to high school students, thus breaking the law. He was arrested and his defense and prosecution is the basis of the film "Inherit the Wind."
Bertram T. Cates (played by Dick York) is based on John Scopes who was the teacher who taught Darwinism in high school. In the film Cates is arrested and stands trial for teaching young adults that they have descended from monkeys. Rushing to his defense is the newspaper the Baltimore Herald (in real life the Baltimore Sun). The newspaper sends out EK. Hornbeck (in real life H.L. Mencken) to report the story. The paper also hires Henry Drummond (played by Spencer Tracy - this character represents Clarence Darrow in the real trial). The lawyer for the prosecution is Matthew Harrison Brady (in real life William Jennings Bryan).
During the film one cannot help but cheer on the liberal lawyer who stands up against the bigoted, narrow minded bullying of the lawyer Brady. Brady is seen to be stuffing his face with enormous amounts of food, while Drummond makes do with a small modest sandwich. Brady is full of himself, boasting and strutting, while Brady is witty, quiet and thoughtful. You even get the impression that Mrs. Brady wishes her husband could be more like good old Drummond.
Darwinism is the stuff of the future, the stuff of intellect; Tennessee has wronged it by outlawing it with a narrow-minded law. Creationism is wrong, it is blind, it is too caught up in its own truth to understand that the reality of the world is not in agreement with it. Only those who are concerned with personal fame, with overeating and with pride would defend Creationism. The logical, rational being must and does support Darwinism. That is the message of the film.
But as I watched it recently I realized that the problem lay not in Creationism nor in Darwinism. It lay in the people chosen to prosecute and defend this argument. Those standing up for Creationism were unable (or failed) to develop their arguments. They did not bother to work on a defense of their ideas, because they assumed that they were right. They assumed everyone would naturally agree with them. They assumed too much.
Curious, I wanted to see how the real case was argued. Surely it could not have been this black and white? Was the attorney for the prosecution so truly wrapped up in his own importance that he failed to pursue his case? Was the case really one lone individual standing up for the truth against mass bigotry?
Reading about and watching documentaries on the original trial reveal a very different story. The Butler Act had been introduced into Tennessee in the 1920s - this much was true. But at the time teachers all over the state were using a book in which Darwinism was included. This book was indeed provided by the school board. That is, the state itself was having teachers teach the students Darwinism.
The so-called Monkey Trial was instigated by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had been set up in 1920. The ACLU needed a trial to bring their name onto the agenda. They offered to defend anyone accused of teaching the theory of evolution in Tennessee in contravention of the Butler Act.
George Rappleyea, a manager for a coal company, met with lawyers and the superintendent of schools, and told them that if they could have a trial like this in the small town of Dayton, it would put them on the map. They called John Scopes, who was a substitute high school science teacher and asked him to admit to teaching the theory of evolution. Scopes agreed, although stating uncertainty as to whether or not he had really taught this subject in school.
Scopes coached his students in how to testify against him. The judge found him guilty and he was arrested (although never detained, unlike in the film). The Baltimore Sun posted his $500 bail.
Mr. Rappleyea, still eager to put his town on the map, even wrote to H.G. Wells to ask him to join the defense team. However, Wells replied that he had no legal training and declined the kind offer.
The Baptist pastor W.B. Riley (founder of World Christian Fundamentals Association) called on William Jennings Bryan to act as the counsel for the W.C.F.A. Bryan had run for the presidency three times (as the Democratic candidate) and had been Secretary of State. Bryan was famous for his oratory skills and was referred by many. A devout Presbyterian, Bryan snapped up the offer. To paraphrase what Scopes says in the book Center of the Storm, once Bryan agreed to be special prosecutor, there was no way that the controversy over the case would remain "within the bounds of constitutionality."
The ACLU had an ace up their sleeve; this was Clarence Darrow, a renowned lawyer, who was a self-declared agnostic. At first, Darrow had refused to participate, stating that his participation would cause the trial to be more like a circus than a legal trial. However, realizing that the trial would be circus-like, no matter who prosecuted, in the end Darrow agreed, stating that the country had to be "aroused to the evil at hand" to avoid great "mischief."
H.L. Mencken from The Baltimore Sun was a great writer and a very influential presence. Coming with the hundreds of journalists who came from all over the country, or even from all over the world, it was Mencken who came up with the term "Monkey Trial." Due to the attention this trial was attracting, it was the first to be broadcast on radio.The climax of the film, in which the Drummond (Darrow) puts Brady (Bryan) on the stand did happen. However, in reality the judge decided that this whole incredible battle of words and ideas was irrelevant to the case, and had it expunged from the record.
The jury took less than 10 minutes to arrive at a decision after the eight-day trial. Perhaps they found it so easy to decide because they missed most of the arguments of the defense and prosecution, due to being excluded from the courtroom. Or perhaps because the case was a question of whether or not Scopes had taught evolution and not about whether teaching evolution was right or wrong.
As a result, Scopes was fined $100. This was what the defense, and the ACLU, had been waiting for; they appealed the case.
In the appeal, the lawyers argued that the Tennessee law which prohibited teaching evolution was in violation of Scopes's constitutional right to free speech. This argument was rejected, as the court upheld the state's right to regulate a teacher's speech; teachers were employees of the state and thus under contract with the state. Such an employee "had no right or privilege to serve the state except upon such terms as the state prescribed. His liberty, his privilege, his immunity to teach and proclaim the theory of evolution, elsewhere than in the service of the state, was in no wise touched by this law."
Although the statute was found to be constitutional, the court lifted the conviction due to a legal technicality. According to Tennessee law, any fine above $50 was to be set by the jury, not the judge. Although the punishment for violating the Butler Act was $100, it was the jury who set it.
The judge in the appeal, Justice Green, said the following:
"The court is informed that the plaintiff in error is no longer in the service of the state. We see nothing to be gained by prolonging the life of this bizarre case..."
The film "Inherit the Wind" romanticizes reality. It also has had a great impact on public opinion. Gene Kelly's character in the film mocks the locals of Dayton, disparaging them. In reality H.L. Mencken called the locals "yokels" and "morons." He referred to Bryan as a "buffoon" who gave speeches consisting of "theological bilge." Such strong words made it easy for the public to choose sides; of course they would not be on the side of the yokels or the morons, or even the buffoons.
Despite Mencken's attempts to disparage Bryan, the latter was very eloquent and argued his case well. Many people did not see Bryan's performance in the trial as a defeat; in fact, Bryan did not feel he had been beaten by Darrow. The problem was that he died soon after (not during the trial, as in the film) and left a vacuum among the fundamentalists.
It has been suggested that Mencken's reports of the trials were instrumental in creating a reaction to creationism. That is, the reality was very different. When a character in the film accuses Gene Kelly of misreporting what is going on, he replies "It is a journalist's job to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable." And there I was thinking that a journalist's job is to objectively inform the public. In the real trial many journalists did not attend the entire trail; one journalist did not go at all, saying he did not need to hear what was going on, as he knew what his paper wanted him to write.
Another interesting thing about the original Monkey Trial was that it did not appear in the Encyclopedia Britannica until 1957 - that is not until "Inherit the Wind" was being performed on Broadway. The Scopes trial started to appear in textbooks, demonstrating the conflict between fundamentalists and "the rest of the world" in the 1960s. That is, the trial in itself did not qualify for fame; it was Broadway and Hollywood that made it famous.
Here is an obvious case of journalism distorting reality to fit an agenda. Here is a clear example of Hollywood glamorizing a very serious matter to suit its own agenda. "Inherit the Wind" lays bare how journalism (and Hollywood) can take up a cause and report it, presenting "news" with scant regard for reality. The priority for the journalists in the film, as well as the priority for the journalists at the actual Scopes trial, was not the truth. The priority was to demonstrate that one side was evil and one side good. Not all journalists are so unscrupulous. However, it should be remembered when reading articles about what is going on in the world that everyone has an agenda. The questions the reader must always keep in mind are what is the agenda and who has set it.
