speaking of great courtroom dramas,
Inherit the Wind (1960) plays Friday November 20th @ 12:05 am (just past Midnight Thursday) on the MGM Movie channel. fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial and was a shot at 1950's McCarthyism. was a re "tour de force" for both
Spencer Tracy as defense lawyer Henry Drummond (who was patterned after "Monkey Trial" defense lawyer Clarence Darrow) and
Fredric March as proecuter Matthew Harrison Brady (who was patterned after "Monkey Trial" prosecuter William Jennings Bryan).
also stars
Gene Kelly as a Baltimore Herald reporter covering the trial (patterned after Henry L. Mencken),
person York as the teacher on trial for teaching evolution (patterned after the real John Scopes),
Harry Morgan as the judge,
Claude Akins as a "fire and brimstone" preacher,
Donna Anderson as York's characters girl friend with
Noah Beery Jr and early work by
Norman Fell. the movie received four Academy Award nominations including Best Actor for Spencer Tracy (lost to Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry) and has a 90% "fresh" rating from Rotten Tomatoes. definitely worth seeing at least once I rate it
of four
watched
Ship of Fools (1965) last night on Turner Classic Movies. another excellent drama about the passengers on a German ship traveling from Mexico to Germany in 1933 it has an all star cast including
Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, Jose Ferrer, Oskar Werner, Elizabeth Ashley, George Segal, Jose Greco, the lovely
Barbara Luna &
Gila Golan and
Werner "Col Klink"
Klemperer.had eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Actors for Oskar Werner and Best Actress for Simone Signoret BUT the dwarf
Michael Dunn as Carl Glocken,
Lee Marvin as the washed up American baseball player Bill Tenny and
Heinz Ruhmann as the J*ew Lowenthal really steal the movie with their interaction
(Ferrer as the Nazi) Rieber: Lowenthal, you know it is a historical fact that the person are the basis of our misfotunes.
Lowenthal: Of course.
Rieber: You agree?
Lowenthal: Of course. The person and the bicycle riders.
Rieber: The bicycle riders? Why the bicycle riders?
Lowenthal: Why the person?
Lowenthal to Glocken discurring how the J*ews of Germany are more German than J*ewish and that Hitler is a passing fancy. final line. "there are a million J*ews in Germany. what are they going to do? kill all of us?" (YIKES)
Bill Tenny crying the Glocken how not being able to hit the sinking curve ball cost him his career. at the end Glocken replies "you know mr Tenny, there must be millions of people that do not even know WHAT a sinking curveball is"
definitely a movie worth watching at least once. I rate it
of four