Nows and Forevers

“You never pushed a noun against a verb except to blow up something.”

“Inherit the Wind” is one of the great plays of the ’50s and one of the great movies of 1960. It’s kind of stunning that it didn’t win anything at the Academy Awards. Putatively about the 1920s Scopes Monkey Trial, it’s also about McCarthyism and the 1950s, and 63 years after its release, it has a lot to say about the world we live in today.

The script and the play not only are first rate-dramas, but they offer so much in the writing. And the movie has first-rate acting: Spencer Tracy, Frederic March, Gene Kelly (yes, that Gene Kelly), Dick York, Harry Morgan. Tracy and March are at the top of their game, in roles of a lifetime of it wasn’t for the fact that they always brought the heat. Tracey plays the character named after Clarence Darrow, who has always been a personal hero of mine. (Here’s why.) York, who became well known on “Bewitched,” is outstanding as the teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of state law.

I am blown away, though, by Kelly’a performance. He was already in some of the great movies of the late ’40s and ’50s including the groundbreaking “Singin’ in the Rain.” Kelly was what they call in Hollywood a multihyphenate – dancer, singer, choreographer, director and musical actor – but not known for drama.

Until this movie.

He was fabulous as E.K. Hornbeck, modeled after journalist H.L. Mencken. It’s this scene, sparring at the very end with Tracy, that Kelly shows he can go toe-to-toe with the best.

So good.

As a journalist, it’s also an object lesson, a reminder that your humanity is important in your search for truth. There’s such thing as being too cynical, to in Tracy’s words needlessly push a noun against a verb.

I don’t like to watch courtroom dramas as a rule, maybe because I have spent a fair amount of time covering the justice system. But “Inherit the Wind,” as well as “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” are exceptions to the rule. So is another classic, “Twelve Angry Men.”

All three from the ’50s, which if you look back is a lot less rosy and idyllic than collective memory suggests. And if you haven’t seen either “Inherit the Wind” and “Twelve Angry Men,” you should. They are the kind of movies not made anymore but should.