which one is better...or can they be compared...both are "fact" based courtroom dramas directed by Stanley Kramer and starring Spencer Tracy, made one after another?
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i liked them both too, i saw them both in school...but anyhow, they were good EDUCATIONAL movies
In my opinion, Spencer Tracy never made a bad film. I believe he was one of our country's finest actors: strong, natural, soft, a diamond in the rough with the ability to portray an intensity beyond comparison. It's difficult for me to compare "Inherit The Wind" and "Judgment At Nuremberg" because they were both such excellent films and I loved them both. However, if I had to choose, I'd choose "Inherit The Wind." Although both based upon true events, the premises were very different. He was excellent in both. I also count among his best films, a film based on current events of the 60's -- and his last as he passed away shortly after it was completed -- "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner." Tracy was powerful, phenomenal, logical - the rock! That, combined with the incredible acting skills and personal, emotional involvement of the love of his life, Katherine Hepburn, and the amazing Sidney Poitier made for a film which shouldn't be missed, especially by the younger generation, many of whom see a very different world today regarding interracial relationships and a family's personal grappling and coming to grips with the "differences" among the races "when it hits home." I doubt we'll ever see the likes of another Spencer Tracy.
shareJAN did a better job at not telling the audience what to think. ITW made it clear that the anti-evolutionaries were flakes; on the other hand, my heart went out to every German depicted in JAN, with the obvious exception of Werner Klemperer's character, but without whom the film would be incomplete.
shareBoth are outstanding, but I lean to Judgement.
shareDefinitely Judgment at Nuremberg. As much as I agree with the message of Inherit the Wind, it embodies everything I dislike about Kramer: it's loud, it's mean-spirited, it's over-the-top to an unnecessary degree and it cartoonizes Southerners as vile, cheese-brained freaks. I'm waiting for the day when a filmmaker actually makes a more faithful movie about the Scopes Trial.
"What I don't understand is how we're going to stay alive this winter."
Inherit the Wind was as a child my first movie that was truly "mine". I discovered it, not my parents. And Spencer Tracy is still my favorite actor.
I just liked the comic side of Tracy showing through (though admittedly there was no comic side to Judgment at Nuremberg). I think the quote in Inherit the Wind, was "OK, Colonel, we'll play in your ballpark", when not allowed to submit any scientific evidence, and had to turn to the bible.
Judgement certainly shows a more realistic looking trial. In Inherit the Wind, given the weakness of the defense shown by Tracy was laughable in its weakness, and no wonder he lost. As far as performances go, Inherit is more bravura, but Judgement seems to be a more solid overall performance.
shareActually, Inherit the Wind is more than bravura. It's complete fiction. The whole trial was a farce fabricated by the ACLU from start to finish.
The thing was that he could preach the evangel of evolution on a street corner, in a tavern, or heck even on school grounds somewhere, just not in the classroom. That's something Inherit the Wind didn't go into. Scopes, himself, was a plant by the ACLU, and they accordingly hand-picked Clarence Darrow to defend him in the hopes of having a platform to spread evolution in the news.
The trial was held outdoors because of the circus atmosphere that the publicity of the event ginned up in the tiny town of Dayton, TN.
The part where Drummond, played by Tracy, puts Brady on the stand is a fabrication too, since the real judge wouldn't allow it on the grounds that since this wasn't even a felony case and William Bryan wasn't on the witness list at all. However, Bryan agreed with Darrow to take the stand only if the jury didn't hear it, and wasn't on the record. Remember, this whole trial was a publicity stunt, nothing more. The jury never heard that cross-examination, and there is no written transcript of it anywhere.
Scopes himself was never in jeopardy by a mob wanting to kill him. In fact, he never spent a night in jail. He was booked upon arrest and was released on bail within a few hours. He had complete access to the town and could go where he liked with absolutely no threat to his safety whatsoever from anyone, because by and large this trial, again, wasn't about him at all.
By rights, the judge in the trial should never have let it even come to a trial, and by rights he should never have let it become the media circus that it was, but once again the ACLU chose their judge carefully. Any other county judge would've said,
"Did you teach evolution in your class?"
"Yes, your honor."
"Okay, this court finds the defendant guilty, and he will pay a fine of $50.00 (1925 dollars, which is probably about $100.00 today). Next case."
I agree. The real life Scopes trial was (from what I read & hears) more complex. Today, it is fashionable to oversimplify and caricature persons of the Christian faith...Which I hope will be as out of date as past caricatures of...persons of color, persons of other faiths are...now.
...Comments of "Icebox" and some others are so on target...The "Nurenburg" film will most likely stay less dated
Scriptwriters and directors take NOTE: Humans (even those with beliefs you despise) are complex persons...and the hot topic politics of an immediate situation which you LOVe or HATE...tend to look somewhat different when viewed years later...when more facts are in.
JaN is the far greater of the two, though Inherit the Wind is an excellent film. There's few movies ever made, and no courtroom movie, that is on par with Judgement at Nuremberg.
"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."
As the years have gone by I have gone from loving "Inherit the Wind," to absolutely HATING it. Why? Several reasons, not the least of which is it's over-the-top heavy-handedness, and trivialization of the truth.
But that aside, I decided to learn more about this trial, the people involved and mostly in the real-life personas of Clarence Darrow and W.J. Bryant. Well, I was and continue to be shocked at the reality; the film is nothing more than a different kind of witch-hunt, where the "witches" are the good people of Tennessee, Bryant, and religion in general, and the "witch-hunters" are the playwright, screen writers, or anyone to do with the content of the film.
This should not be discussed in the same breath as "Nuremberg."
I agree with others that Judgment at Nuremberg administers a far more partial treatment to both sides of the issue than Inherit the Wind, which tends to simplify things a great deal and be obtrusively didactic.
However, after re-watching both films on back-to-back nights (I think that makes 3 viewings for each), my verdict is Inherit the Wind. There's nothing quite so thrilling as seeing two actors of Tracy and March's stature go toe-to-toe on issues that are just as relevant today as they were 50 years ago. The dialogue crackles, and there are tender moments of humanity and touches of comedy that temper the hostile mood of the rest of the movie. As an added bonus, we get a brilliant Gene Kelly in rare dramatic form as a cynical, acerbic newspaper reporter.
Judgment at Nuremberg is a juggernaut of a movie, boasting weighty issues and powerhouse acting from one of the finest casts ever assembled. Definitely one of the best and most ambitious courtroom movies ever made. However, it does get oppressively somber under its lengthy running time. The spark and kineticism of Inherit the Wind puts it just over the top for me.
Kramer is woefully under-appreciated. The fact that he made these two films alone should be enough to silence the naysayers, yet he also has The Defiant Ones and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World to his credit (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is pretty divisive, and I haven't seen On the Beach or Ship of Fools.) A guy who could be preachy with little regard for subtlety, yet unafraid to stand out as a dissenting voice at a time when it was most risque to do so.
"...if that was off, I'd be whoopin' your ass up and down this street." ~ an irate Tarantino
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