Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapated Screenplay 1960

The Contenders:

Elmer Gantry (winner)
Inherit the Wind
Sons and Lovers
The Sundowners
Tunes of Glory

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actor 1960

The Contenders:

Jack Lemmon: The Apartment
Burt Lancaster: Elmer Gantry (winner)
Laurence Olivier: The Entertainer
Spencer Tracy: Inherit the Wind
Trevor Howard: Sons and Lovers

Watching Oscar: Inherit the Wind

Film: Inherit the Wind
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

I love Inherit the Wind. When I think of films that I genuinely love, films that I can watch repeatedly with no loss of enjoyment, this is one that springs to mind. I don’t know at this point how effusive I’ll be in this review, but I can tell you now that I consider Inherit the Wind one of the few films that is virtually perfect. It's beautifully cast, has a magnificent script, and is as well acted and directed as anything I’ve seen.

This film is essentially a fictionalized version of the Scopes trial. It ramps up the drama, of course, gets rid of a lot of the legal stuff, and gives us a family drama underneath along with a great deal of fire and brimstone preaching. Assuming that you may have fallen asleep during this part of history class in school, the Scopes trial was the one in which a teacher was accused of breaking a state law in Tennessee for teaching evolution in a classroom. While a number of liberties are taken with the story here, it still conforms in general (and in result) to the historical trial, a case in which the fictionalization of a historical event actually works perfectly.