In the 1920s, in the town of Hillsboro Tennessee, a female voice sings "Old-time Religion" as schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for violating state law by conducting a lesson on Charles Darwin's Descent of Man. The event makes headlines around the world. Matthew Brady, statesman, three-time presidential candidate, and Biblical scholar, volunteers to assist Prosecutor Tom Davenport.
Inherit the Wind is a parable that fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial as a means to discuss McCarthyism. Written in response to the chilling effect of the McCarthy era investigations on intellectual discourse, the film (like the play) is critical of creationism.
The characters of Matthew Harrison Brady, Henry Drummond, Bertram Cates and E. K. Hornbeck correspond to the historical figures of William Jennings Bryan, Clarence Darrow, Scopes, and H. L. Mencken, respectively. However, Lee and Lawrence state in a note at the opening of the play on which the film is based that it is not meant to be a historical account, and many events were substantially altered or invented.
