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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Alleged (2010)


Some lies just need to be told.

"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), a talented young reporter, 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 Meany), 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) who sees the reduction of mankind to mere animal status as both inaccurate and potentially disastrous. Once in the midst of this staged event, Charles is torn between his love for the more principled 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.

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