Oy, so much shouting. Frederic March’s entertaining cartoonish performance as a William Jennings Bryan-type aside, I have to part company with nearly everyone else on earth and say this movie kinda blows. Some of the dialogue is good for its time, I guess . . . but all I heard was a lot of screaming and yelling. And then the ending pussied-out with Spencer Tracy packing up a bible with his Darwin. And suddenly Gene Kelly, whose city-slick observer is meant to stand-in for the audience, is condemned for being cynical. Whatever. He’s the only likeable character in the movie. I never liked Spencer Tracy. Something about Spencer Tracy has always bugged me and always will. There aren’t that many intelligent movies that argue for agnosticism (I can only think of “Contact”) but I just can’t get behind this one too much.
