How does this compare to the other versions?
I just saw this movie and thought it was pretty good.
Are the other versions worth watching or are they basically the same but with different actors?
The classic version with Spencer Tracy & Frederic March is well worth seeing, simply for the powerful & nuanced performances. But this later version doesn't suffer for the comparison, either.
sharethanks for the tip...
shareI watched both this and the 1960 Tracy/March version back to back. (They are both currently on Amazon Prime..but the Lemmon/Scott version is not.)
This version with Robards and Douglas is clearly a TV production...perhaps for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, and though the 1960 version wasn't all that "big budget" of a movie(in black and white), THIS version seems pretty stunted. A smaller courtroom, fewer extras, a smaller brass band, fewer scenes away from the courtroom. I don't know from the original play, but dialogue has been switched so that Drummond(Robards here; Tracy originally) says things to his client rather than to Bryant(Douglas here; March originally).
It is interesting -- it is ALWAYS interesting -- to see the same words come out of different actors mouths from different camera angles, but I daresay that the Robards/Douglas version is "summer stock."
I haven't seen the Jack Lemmon/George C Scott version yet, but my hopes aren't high on that one. That one came AFTER Lemmon and Scott went toe-to-toe in a remake of 12 Angry Men(Lemmon in for saintly Fonda; Scott in for roaring Lee J. Cobb) and it was sad to see that Lemmon and Scott were too old and tired for THOSE roles. How much better could they be, even OLDER, in Inherit the Wind?