Directed by Stanley Kramer • 1960 • United States
Starring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly

One of the twentieth century’s most spectacular trials—the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial, which pitted the theory of evolution against creationism in a battle over intellectual freedom—is vividly dramatized in this sterling adaptation of the classic Broadway play. When Southern schoolteacher Bertram Cates (Dick York) is put on trial for teaching evolution in a public school, famed attorney Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy, playing a Clarence Darrow–like figure) steps in to defend him, going up against prosecutor Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March), who represents the forces of Christian fundamentalism, in a showdown that will captivate the nation.