Summary
ALLEGED is a romantic drama based on events occurring behind the scenes and outside the courtroom of the famous Scopes "Monkey Trial" of 1925.
Charles Anderson (Nathan West) is a talented young reporter who feels trapped living in a tiny town (Dayton, TN, 1925) in steep decline. Using the Monkey Trial as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break into the journalistic big leagues, Charles becomes the eager protégé of Baltimore Sun editor H.L Mencken (Colm Meaney), America's most colorful and influential columnist. The trial itself lives up to its billing as the "Trial of the Century" when the great Clarence Darrow (Brian Dennehy) defends the theory of evolution against the popular statesman and fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan (Sen. Fred Thompson). Once in the midst of this staged event, Charles is torn between his love for Rose (Ashley Johnson), his fiancée, and the escalating moral compromises that he is asked to make by the agnostic and acerbic Mencken. When the truth is at stake, Charles discovers, some lies just have to be told.
ALLEGED is a true story of conflicts that boiled over in 1925 but that remain simmering with us to this day — evolution and creation in the public schools, the role of science in society, and media sensationalism motivated by religious and political biases on all sides.
Historical Characters
Even though ALLEGED is not a retelling of the famous Monkey Trial, that trial does provide a real-life backdrop full of controversial issues, fascinating characters, and surprising events. Below are three well-known celebrities portrayed in ALLEGED that were at the actual Scopes Trial and three lesser-known historical characters of interest:
H.L. MENCKEN: The most quotable and influential columnist of his day, Mencken wrote for the Baltimore Sun and authored several books on language and quotations. His scathing wit was often directed at Bible-believers, progressives, politicians, and do-gooders of all sorts. Mencken was a lovable and hilarious curmudgeon as long as you were not one of his targets, like the fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan. Mencken's obituary of Bryan (who died in Dayton just five days after the trial) remains as arguably the most vitriolic and demeaning of any national figure ever written.
CLARENCE DARROW: Perhaps the greatest defense attorney of all time, Darrow was a famous agnostic, brilliant on his feet, a supporter of unions and various socialist causes, and (according to his critics) ethically-challenged. He appreciated Bryan for Bryan's liberal politics (campaigning for him in two of Bryan's three runs for President as the Democratic candidate), but found Christianity to be repressive and backward.
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN: Bryan is known as one of the greatest orators in American history. He was a consummate statesman, a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party on three separate occasions, and Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. Motivated by his belief in the Christian "social gospel," Bryan was a far-left-leaning politician (fighting especially against US military involvement abroad and for women's and workers' rights) while believing in the Bible as written. During the Scopes Trial, he volunteered on behalf of the Prosecution for the purpose of delivering the closing argument for the State. A college was erected in his name after the trial in Dayton, TN.
JOHN SCOPES: The young John Scopes was a general math teacher and football coach at the Dayton High School in 1925. Although in his memoirs he admitted to never having taught evolution to any students, he did substitute for the regular biology teacher's class at the end of the year and conducted a general review of the course in preparations for the students' final exams. Since the course textbook clearly violated the Tennessee statute regarding the teaching of the evolution of mankind, this general review was thought by the ACLU and the trial hosts (local businessmen, including the prosecutors who would try the case) to be close enough to make him a defendant in the case. Scopes thus volunteered to participate in the trial once he was assured that it would not involve him taking the stand or jeopardizing his teaching job. Professor Scopes was a local hero at the trial and was offered his teaching position for the following fall but elected to attend graduate school with funds raised by the scientific experts who attended the trial on his behalf.
GEORGE RAPPLEYEA: "Rapp" was a New Yorker who was an engineer and the manager of the Cumberland Coal and Iron Company in Dayton. It was Rappleyea who first saw the advertisement placed by the ACLU in a Tennessee newspaper seeking a public school teacher willing to testify that he had violated the state's new anti-evolution law. Rappleyea then convinced a handful of Dayton's more prominent citizens to help host the trial. He also persuaded the defendant, John Scopes, to "lend his name." Rappleyea's stunt to put Dayton back "on the map" ultimately worked. Dayton is alive and thriving today, in no small part due to Bryan College which was founded virtually at the close of the trial.
TOM STEWART: With the help of assistant prosecutor Sue Hicks (the original "Boy named Sue" of Johnny Cash fame) among others, Attorney General Arthur Thomas Stewart prosecuted John Scopes as part of Dayton's friendly test case. He won the case against Scopes although it is widely considered a pyrrhic victory insofar as the Tennessee statute (although upheld on appeal) was largely denounced by the major academies and media as backward and anti-science. After the trial Stewart went on to become twice-elected Democratic Senator from Tennessee in Washington DC.
Fictional Characters
In addition to the historical characters mentioned above, ALLEGED tells the story of Charles, Rose, and Abigail:
CHARLES: Charles is a tremendously talented young writer who feels trapped at his deceased father's newspaper in the small (and shrinking) town of Dayton, TN. His hero is the great H.L. Mencken of the Baltimore Sun. It is no small feat getting a job with Mencken, however, even when the Monkey Trial brings him to Dayton and Charles promises the Sage of Baltimore "inside access" to John Scopes and others. This fictional character is played by Nathan West (Bring it On, Miracle).
ROSE: Nothing in Rose's life represents stability; no father, a mother with an unnamed illness, and a mulatto sister whose father is also never mentioned nor the circumstances of her birth. Mencken explains to Rose that she does not have the genetic material for greatness (unlike Charles, who does). But maybe it's Mencken who lacks what Rose does have. This fictional character is played by Ashley Johnson (The Help, Fast Food Nation, What Women Want, Growing Pains).
ABIGAIL: Over 60,000 Americans were sterilized in America against their will in the name of eugenics. Abigail represents one of the likely targets (along with Native Americans, epileptics, and criminals) of this "science" of human breeding that was widely endorsed by the scientific establishment of the 1920s through the 1940s. This fictional character is played by Khori Faison (My First Tooth).
Inherit the Wind
Stanley Kramer's classic, Inherit the Wind (1960, with Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly), was loosely based on the events of the Scopes Monkey Trial but names were changed and other modifications were made so that the movie would not have to adhere in any reliable way to the actual facts of the trial.
ALLEGED is not a remake of Inherit the Wind. Kramer's film arguably fits the premise of ALLEGED, however, to the extent that certain political and religious biases held by the writers of Inherit the Wind motivated them to modify the actual events of the trial into an alternative story that is now largely believed to be true.
Various "lies" about the actual Scopes Trail that are largely believed to be true include:
- The State of TN outlawed the teaching of evolution in 1925. (It permitted the teaching of 99.999% of the Darwinian theory.)
- Bryan believed that the creation of the world took six literal days of 24-hours. (He believed that the creation took place over millions of years.)
- The textbook used by Scopes in 1925 was a "Christian" version of biology and excluded evolution. (It was 100% evolutionary.)
- Clarence Darrow performed brilliantly in Dayton. (The ACLU sought to have him removed from the case on appeal due to his strategies and conduct at the trial.)
- Bryan feared allowing evolutionary scientists at the trial. (It was Darrow who kept the scientists off the stand when the Judge determined that they could be cross-examined on the stand.)
- And on and on.
For a comparison of the movie Inherit the Wind with the facts of the actual Scopes trial, see www.themonkeytrial.com.
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