I'm going to sit down for the second half of "Inherit the Wind" this evening (staring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly). Good stuff, a story about the Scopes Monkey Trial, about the evolution of monkeys, and whether or not it could be taught in a Tennessee school to "simple folk." In the movie, a reporter dubes as the American Voltaire, H.L. Mencken. 
If time and ambition allows, I'll draft a review for The Peasant Eye, and maybe draw some comparisons and contrasts with the contemporary shenanigans in Kansas. Why don't you fellahs try to catch it again (or for the first time). Maybe we can get a bit of dialog going on the Peasant Eye, too...
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I have never seen ITW in its entirety [only excerpts in high school civics class]. Time to watch it.
Do you remember the excerpts specifically?
I really enjoyed it, but hope to draft something a bit more critcal, perhaps this weekend. All major religious and non-religious parties and sects received representation: the agnostics, the atheists, a sort of Unitarian (at least at the end), the Holy Rolling Bible-Thumpers, the Biblical Literalists, and the non-Literalists, the Darwinists, the Idea-ists, the Secularists, and that's about all I can think of off hand.
The excerpt was of where William Jennings Bryant was testifying. Presumably that was the dramatic denouement of the flick. But 30 years have passed....
I'll have to go over Mencken's records and reports of the trial to determine what was more truth, and what was more Inherit the Wind fiction. Did William Jennings actually ascent to questioning? If so, what an idiot. Metaphysical pontification is filled with more pit-falls and loop-holes than all the respective state legal codes combined!
I do believe that there is a complete trial record, including WJBs testimony....Silly of him, but remember that he had earned well his reputation of many years as one of the most charismatic orators the history of American politics. I guess he figured he would wow his audience....
Actually, I suppose he did. The jury, after all, found Scopes guilty. I'm not sure that the interpretation of events as a Darrow victory in the cross examination was not more a result of later interpretation [revisionism, if you will] than then current perspective.
I sure wish there was a blogger way that sent all new posts to the top. I almost missed your response!
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