shoop and still nothing at stake: Darwin in Malibu

You probably know Inherit the Wind--terrific play and a terrific movie. Well, the Spencer Tracy-Fredric March movie was great--there was a made for TV remake with Jason Robards and Kirk Douglas that was kind of "Inherit the Wind Lite" (Inherit the Breeze?), plus a couple of others that I haven't seen. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee based their courtroom drama on the historical Scopes "Monkey" trial, and the tide and plot turn on Henry Drummond (the Clarence Darrow figure) catching Matthew Harrison Brady (the William Jennings Bryan stand-in) on a literal Biblical point. It's a great scene where debating the possibility of evolution becomes an elaborate and highly satisfying "Gotcha!" moment--satisfying and dramatic, because not only a man's career, but in a sense, the future of science education in America is at stake.

The other great moment comes at the end, involving E.K. Hornbeck (that is, H.L. Mencken), the snarky reporter who has been Drummond's staunch supporter while laughing at the town and at Brady for being a bunch of ignorant rubes. Drummond kicks Hornbeck to the curb, and it's worth a cheer as Drummond chastises Hornbeck for his sneering cynicism regarding the town, Brady, and the schoolteacher on trial, Cates--"I tell you Brady had the same right as Cates--the right to be wrong!" Would that all snarks could be put down that hard and actually learn something from the experience.

Crispin Whittell wrote Darwin in Malibu, and although the cast of characters includes Darwin himself, his staunch real-life supporter Thomas Huxley, and equally staunch spiritual opponent Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, the story is almost identical to that of Inherit the Wind, from Darwin dissing Huxley to the final consideration that there might be room for evolution and faith. There's even a "gotcha" moment in a discussion between Huxley and Wilberforce, as Wilberforce has to concede that some sort of evolution must have occurred following the Great Flood. So why does this play roll over and die while Inherit the Wind triumphs? The key word in that sentence before last is "discussion"--that's why nothing's at stake, and why this story doesn't matter a bit. Whittell, I would guess, has read of a lot of Stoppard, and puts his historical figures incongruously in a Malibu beach house where they interact with a modern Malibu beach babe with a story (not all that interesting, unfortunately) of her own. But the ideas and the "gotcha" moments are neither electric nor satisfying in and of themselves. I was rooting for this play when I read it and when I later saw it in production, even while it was lying there like a lox both as literature and theatre--I appreciated the cleverness and the off-beat set-up. But if Act I is characters chatting amiably and Act II is characters chatting amiably, there's nothing in the air but fatal predictability--so much so that even when we get a last-minute would-be curveball, it merits no more than a mild "Oh."

For the next few entries, I'm going to look at movies that people like a lot, and talk about what's wrong with them--way to alienate your only followers, there, Shoop.