First, there was the famous “Monkey Trial”, during which “north and south” were again able to collide with the foreheads, and with them all other Americans. Then there was the Great Depression. Then came the 50s and McCarthyism. Talking about free speech directly without risking being accused of communism was dangerous. And two playwrights wrote a play based on "The Monkey Trial" about attempts by law to ban talking about unpopular ideas. The play blew up Broadway, and then the big provocateur of the 50s and 60s Stanley Kramer decided to put a film on it.
In the US, a popular misconception has even formed that Reap the Storm represents the story of the Monkey Trial. That's wrong. History has been seriously rewritten. All names have been changed, the facts of biographies are similar. Significant issues and connections for the 20s are omitted. Teachers have never been sent to jail, and the love line is entirely fictional. The closest thing to history is the final questioning of the witness. Cramer rightly put the microphone in the foreground. The Monkey Trial was the first court to broadcast nationally.
In the end, watching the movie for the sake of the “monkey trial” does not make sense. There's almost nothing left of him. Reap the Storm is about another clash of American elites. Both the play and the film were part of the resistance of those Americans who believed that the “red panic” was a good excuse to suppress freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and other fundamental civil liberties. They won and continued to defend civil liberties. So this is a movie about the 20s, which is more about the 50s. It is interesting to watch only in historical terms. This is a typical Kramer film: sentimental, dramatic and pathetic, with long semantic monologues.