The Scopes Retrial

At last: a Hollywood film on the 1925 Scopes “monkey trial” that does not attack Christianity. Alleged, to be released in theaters soon, provides a counter to the anti-creationist play Inherit the Wind (1955) and its subsequent namesake films (1960 and after).*

Photos courtesy of allegedthemovie.com

Alleged stars a familiar face in Hollywood and on Broadway, the Tony Award-winning actor Brian Dennehy. He plays evolutionary attorney Clarence Darrow. Interestingly, Dennehy played William Jennings Bryan (the creation protagonist) in a recent Broadway production of Inherit the Wind. The other major costar is Senator Fred Thompson, who plays Bryan. Both Senator Thompson and William Jennings Bryan ran for president, Thompson for the Republican nomination in 2008 and Bryan as the Democratic nominee three times.

Photos courtesy of allegedthemovie.com

Producer and screenwriter Fred Foote told Answers magazine that, while the 55-year-old drama Inherit the Wind is well written, the actual court transcripts show how inaccurately the play and subsequent movies depicted the trial. Foote observes that even though he did not produce Alleged to be a direct rebuttal to Inherit the Wind, two thrusts of his film include showing how Darwinian beliefs can be used for nefarious purposes (e.g., to justify a purging of the human gene pool) and revealing how the major media delivered a distorted view of the trial in its attempt to attack biblical Christianity.

* www.allegedthemovie.com