Inherit the Wind Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Inherit the Wind Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson January 10, 2023

The 2018 Blu-ray release of Stanley Kramer's INHERIT THE WIND (1960) remains in print courtesy of Kino Lorber Studio Classics. In the US, it has effectively replaced Twilight Time's BD-50, which went out of print years ago. Kino's edition loses the isolated sound track but adds an exclusive audio commentary by Jim Hemphill. In English, with optional English SDH for feature only. Region "A" locked.

After Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee's 1955 play Inherit the Wind became a hit on Broadway and in London, it caught the attention of Stanley Kramer, who tasked screenwriters Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith to pen a film adaptation. (Young and Smith co-wrote a script for Kramer's The Defiant Ones a few years earlier.) The play and movie Inherit the Wind are based on the 1925 “Monkey Trial’” in Dayton, Tennessee where high school teacher John T. Scopes sat as a defendant for the ACLU, who charged the state's law of teaching evolution strictly from the Bible as unconstitutional. Former US Secretary of State and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan was a prosecuting attorney who opposed the ACLU while renowned lawyer Clarence Darrow defended Scopes. The well-regarded journalist H. L. Mencken covered the trial for The Baltimore Sun. In a deft casting move, Kramer chose popular Hollywood actors to play the principals, whose real names were changed. Fredric March (as Matthew Harrison Brady) took on Jennings's role, Spencer Tracy (as Henry Drummond) assumed the part of defense lawyer Darrow, and Gene Kelly (as E. K. Hornbeck) as a Baltimore newspaper editorial writer reporting on the trial. In an underrated performance, Dick York portrayed Scopes as science teacher Bertram T. Cates. The film departs from the real case in that here, Cates is arrested by sheriff's deputies accompanied by Rev. Jeremiah Brown (Claude Akins), a fundamentalist preacher. (Scopes was not arrested.)

In the fictional Tennessee town of Hillsboro, the arrival of assistant prosecutor Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March) is greeted with open arms by the citizens who comprise the Bible belt. Even though defense attorney Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) is longtime friends with Brady, their religious beliefs (Drummond is an agnostic) place them far apart philosophically and on opposite sides of the courtroom. The lovely Rachel Brown (Donna Anderson) is caught between her father's (Claude Akins) religious zeal and devotion to her fiancé Bertram T. Cates (Dick York), who's in the legal fight of his young life.

Bible-reading time in the courtroom.

Like Hitchcock, Kramer spent a good chunk of time strategizing the promotional campaigns of his pictures. Inherit the Wind was no different. In a 1960 interview with Newsday Entertainment Editor Ben Kubasik, Kramer stated that he spent a third of his time in conferences with studio moguls about financing along with planning the advertising and publicity campaigns for his films. Kate Cameron of Wanda Hale of the Daily (NY) News reported the same year that 72 American cities held sneak previews of Inherit the Wind, which elicited "satisfactory reaction from exhibitors and public." According to Kubasik, 77 special screenings were held with exit cards provided to attendees at these test showings prior to the movie's general release. More than 100,000 persons "wrote glowing comments about the movie strictly as entertainment and had the very highest praise for its stars, Spencer Tracy, Fredric March and Gene Kelly."

Critics later agreed with audiences' pre-release feedback for the most part. Herb Kelly of The Miami News proclaimed Inherit the Wind "a master­piece from every angle....Kramer's direction catches the spirit of the drama and it burns like a torch." Jay Carmody of The Evening Star (Washington, DC) had similar plaudits: "[Kramer] has created pure cinema, taut, amused, and as gaudily homespun as the stage play hinted the movie might be." Michael Tytherleigh of British Columbia-based The Province echoed Carmody: "...this is the cinema at its best, informative, dramatic, inquisi­tive and mentally stimulating....a great and gripping motion picture and a small measure of its excitement is that some members of the audience applauded points in Tracy’s cross-examination." Dale Stevens of The Cincinnati Post and Times-Star cited Tracy and March's acting as the "height of artistic achieve­ment.....some of the finest acting you'll ever see." Wanda Hale of the Daily (NY) News acclaimed the stars on the same level: "two of the finest performances I have ever seen on the screen." The film was also received well overseas. Keith Brace of the UK-based The Birmingham Post & Birmingham Gazette declared that March and Tracy give the "performances of their careers." Tracy author Allison King wrote almost verbatim in her short 1992 book on the actor, saying he and March give the "performances of their lifetimes" (p. 67). Gene Kelly also earned high praise but wasn't as recognized as his two co-stars. However, in his 1975 biography of Kelly, Clive Hirschhorn wrote: "Gene excelled in it. It is a beautifully observed performance, solid in conviction and in no way eclipsed by the two heavyweights on either side of him" (p. 229). Inherit the Wind also had some major detractors going against it. As pointed out by Jim Hemphill in this disc's commentary track, Andrew Sarris was one of Kramer's biggest critics. Hemphill doesn't make reference to Sarris's November 1960 review of this picture in The Village Voice but I found that he lambasted Kramer "as one of Hollywood's worst directors." Sarris thought that Kramer's presentation of scenes was too didactic in their messages. He also derided the picture as a "labored exercise of social propaganda."

Inherit the Wind Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kino Lorber Studio Classics employs the MPEG-4 AVC codec on this BD-50 (disc size: 34.15 GB). Inherit the Wind has previously been covered on our site by my colleagues Jeff Kauffman and Svet Atanasov: Jeff reviewed the 2014 Twilight Time BD-50 and Svet the 2018 Eureka Classics BD/DVD combo. Kino's transfer is sourced from an MGM master that probably dates from the early 2010s (but is superior to MGM's 1.66:1 letterboxed transfer on its 2001 DVD). I second Jeff's comment that the extant elements are in "great condition overall." I spotted fewer damage marks and age-related artifacts than I noticed on Kino's Judgment at Nuremberg transfer. I also affirm its organic-looking appearance. I can see where Svet noticed some grain management work done here but there aren't any blatant digital manipulations. Kino encodes the transfer at an average video bitrate of 29909 kbps.

Kino's standard eight chapters accompany the 128-minute feature.

Inherit the Wind Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kino has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono track (1558 kbps, 16-bit). (The other two releases have bit depths of 24 on the DTS-HD MA and PCM tracks.) The dialogue on this monaural mix sounds a tad soft and I'd recommend having volume levels between medium and high on your a/v receiver while playing the disc. The various renditions of "(Gimme Dat) Old Time Religion," performed on the diegetic and non-diegetic image tracks, fare better as the vocals are on the upper register. Composer Ernest Gold also adopts an instrumental tune. In addition, Gold contributes some original music that's predominantly woodwinds. My audio score is 3.75/5.00.

The English SDH can be switched off or on through the menu or via remote.

Inherit the Wind Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Jim Hemphill - Hemphill is also a filmmaker, cinema programmer, and self-proclaimed Stanley Kramer disciple. His commentaries are always a most pleasant listen. He is as informative and analytical as he is informal and casual. Hemphill speaks to the viewer as if s/he is in the viewing room with him. Hemphill's sometime non-specific track covers much of Kramer's career as he at least mentions the films Stanley either produced or directed. Hemphill also examines Inherit the Wind's themes, binary oppositions, contemporary relevance, use of wide lenses, and how the film maintains or deviates from the historical record of the trial. He repeats himself a few times but his repetitions are absolved since his commentary is largely unscripted. He does read excerpts from books by Andrew Sarris and David Thompson (two of Kramer's critics), which evinces how prepared he was with his material. But a majority of his talk is apparently recited from memory. In English, not subtitled.

• Original Theatrical Trailer (4:05, 480i) - Stanley Kramer, posing as sort of a boxing ring announcer, "hosts" this extended trailer for Inherit the Wind. The trailer also includes premiere and festival footage.

• Bonus KLSC Trailers - vintage trailers from Kino's catalog: Judgment at Nuremberg, On the Beach, Not as a Stranger, and A Child Is Waiting.

Inherit the Wind Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Inherit the Wind (1960) features a master class of acting by two Hollywood legends. The dozen minutes of courtroom banter between Tracy and March is a textbook example. Kino Lorber's disc offers an exclusive commentary by Hemphill that's worth the price of this disc. I agree with him that Kramer deserves to be considered a bona fide auteur for his excellent craftsmanship and prescient social commentary. The transfer is quite similar to those found on the Twilight Time and Eureka Entertainment editions, which is saying that it's very good. A VERY SOLID RECOMMENDATION.