Florence Eldridge, who plays Fredric March's devoted wife in the film, was the actor's real-life wife. This was the seventh movie they appeared in together. The film and the play it was adapted from were based on the real-life 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial that took place in Dayton, Tennessee. Henry Drummond, Matthew Harrison Brady, reporter E. K. Hornbeck and teacher Bertram T. Cates were modeled after Clarence Darrow, William Jennings Bryan, Baltimore reporter H. L. Mencken and teacher John T. Scopes, respectively. The trial was labeled the Monkey Trial by some of the country's newspapers because of the concept of evolution which was at issue. goes by the name Nedrick Young.