ALLEGED
"The truth has nothing to fear."
Historical Drama
Feature film in production September 2009
Written by Fred Foote and Brian Godawa
Story
Alleged is a romantic drama based on events using both historical and fictional elements occuring behind the scenes and outside the courtroom of the famous Scopes “Monkey Trial” of 1925. Charles Anderson, a talented young reporter, feels trapped working for his deceased father’s weekly newspaper and living in a tiny town (Dayton, TN) in steep decline. Seeing the “Monkey Trial” as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break into the journalistic big leagues, Charles manages to insert himself into the middle of the “Trial of the Century.” Once in the midst of this staged event, however, he is torn between his love for the more principled Rose, his fiancée, and the escalating moral compromises that he is asked to make as the eager protégé of H.L. Mencken, America’s most colorful and influential columnist.
Alleged is a true story of conflicts that boiled over in 1925 but that remain simmering with us to this day – evolution, creation, the role of science in society (which included eugenics at that time), and media sensationalism motivated by religious and political biases. You won’t believe how it begins; you won’t believe how it ends.