Inherit the Wind (1960)

Starring Spencer Tracy (Drummond) and Fredric March (Brady), and featuring Gene Kelly (Hornbeck), Dick York (Cates), Harry Morgan (Judge), Donna Anderson (Rachel Brown), Claude Akins (Rev. Brown), Noah Beery, Jr. (Stebbins), Florence Eldridge (Mrs. Brady), and Jimmy Boyd (Howard). The movie was adapted by Nedrick Young (originally as Nathan E. Douglas) and Harold Jacob Smith, and directed by Stanley Kramer.

At the Berlin International Film Festival, March received the Silver Bear Award for Best Actor, and the film was nominated for the Golden Bear award. The movie was also nominated for the following Academy Awards: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Spencer Tracy), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Film Editing and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. It was also nominated for BAFTA Best Film and Best Foreign Actor.

The film deviates from the play, most notably by reducing the unidimensionality of some of the characters. Furthermore, the friendship of Drummond and Brady is emphasized as they respectfully explain their positions in a cordial private conversation.

The film incorporates more of the actual trial transcript than does the stage play, most notably the incident in which Clarence Darrow is cited for contempt of court. The film includes a sequence where a mob harasses Cates in his jail cell and then threatens Drummond at his hotel. That same night, a conversation with Hornbeck inspires Drummond to call Brady as a witness, to expose the contradictions that result from a literal interpretation of the Bible.

The blurb for the 2002 DVD release of the film included the following factoid: "In 1960, Inherit the Wind became the world's first in-flight movie when Trans World Airlines used it to lure first-class passengers!"