Inherit the wind videorecording a United Artists release ; produced and directed by Stanley Kramer ; screenplay by Nathan E. Douglas and Harold Jacob Smith.

DVD release of the 1960 motion picture.

Based upon the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.

Special features: theatrical trailer.

In the small Southern town of Hillsboro, in the 1920s, a school teacher, Bertram Cates, is about to stand trial for teaching Darwinism, which is a violation of state law. Cates is denounced by town leaders including Reverend Jeremiah Brown.
The town is excited because Matthew Brady, a noted statesman and three-time presidential candidate, will be assisting in the prosecution of Cates. A staunch foe of evolution and a Biblical scholar, Brady will sit beside prosecuting attorney Tom Davenport, in the courtroom of Judge Coffey. The teacher's defense is to be handled by the equally well-known Henry Drummond, one of America's most controversial legal minds and a long-standing acquaintance and adversary of Brady. An influential newspaperman, E.K. Hornbeck of the Baltimore Herald, has persuaded Drummond to represent Cates, and ensured that his newspaper and a radio network will provide nationwide coverage of the case.
Rev. Brown publicly rallies the townspeople against Cates and Drummond. The preacher's daughter Rachel is conflicted because she and Cates are engaged. When Rachel cries out against her father's condemnation, Brady admonishes Brown by quoting Solomon: "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."
The courtroom takes on a circus atmosphere with radio broadcasting, newspaper photography and spectator outbursts during the trial. Each time Drummond calls a scientist or authority figure to discuss Darwin's theories, the judge sustains the prosecution's objections and forbids such testimony, ruling that Cates, not evolution, is on trial. Drummond grows frustrated, feeling the case has already been decided. When he asks to withdraw from the case, the judge holds Drummond in contempt of court, orders him jailed, and tells Drummond to show cause the next morning why he should not be held in contempt of court. John Stebbins offers his farm as collateral for Drummond's bail. Stebbins' son was a friend and protégé of Cates who drowned after developing a cramp while swimming. Brown had said the child was damned to hell because he was not baptized. This led to Cates abandoning the church, as he felt it was not fair that a child could not enter Heaven due to an action that was beyond his control.

Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, Dick York, Donna Anderson, [with] Harry Morgan.

A small Tennessee town gained national attention in 1925 when a biology schoolteacher was arrested for violating state law and teaching Darwin's theory of evolution in the classroom.

Not rated.

DVD, widescreen presentation; Dolby digital, mono.

Closed-captioned. Includes English, French and Spanish language tracks, with optional English captions, and optional French and Spanish subtitles.