In his preparation for the ministry, it is ironic that Elmer plagiarizes his first (and most frequently useful) sermon from the social reformer Robert G. Ingersoll: Love is the only bow on lifes dark cloud. She is also a pious churchgoer who has always wanted Elmer to become a preacher. These help her to put on a dramatic show that wins many converts. You're all doomed to perdition! WebLove is the voice of music. However as the pressure builds to tear him down, can Gantry prevent his past from returning to haunt him? As Elmer (Burt Lancaster) is a saleman with a powerfully persusive tongue who joins up Sister Sharon Falconer (glamorous Jean Simmons) along with her colleagues , Sister Rachel (Patti Page) , William L. Morgan (Dean Jagger) touring grass-roots evengelist circus during the depressed twenties . As a sojourner on this earth, she goes on, trying to explain how in these months she has kept her sanity and her faith, I dont feel terribly entitled. (film) Elmer Gantry is a 1960 film about a con man and a female evangelist selling religion to small town America. William's business plan has been for the show to set up in small towns, so it's against his wishes that Sister Sharon, falling for Elmer, agrees to Elmer's plan to set up in the larger city of Zenith, where William feels the that the scrutiny of the cynical urban populace will hurt their brand. She has created an enchanted image of herself, and she has convinced her audience of that image, so that they see her as she wants to be seen, and only we, given glimpses of another self when she reveals herself to Elmer, come to know how complete and insane is her transformation. GENRE: Fiction, nonfiction Jim tries to persuade Elmer not to go along with it, but when Elmer attends the Annual Prayer Week he cannot resist the emotionalism of the service. Elizabeth S. Prioleau, "The Minister and the Seductress in American Fiction: The Adamic Myth Reduz". Every one knew of some case in which each of the others had stolen, or was said to have tried to steal, some parishioner, to have corrupted his faith and appropriated his contributions. Lewis researched the novel by observing the work of various preachers in Kansas City in his so-called "Sunday School" meetings on Wednesdays. The following was written for REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities. Though it makes its position on for-profit religious functions clear from the very beginning of the film, it attempts its critique in a fair manner. They hypnotize themselves, says Jim Lefferts to Elmer, trying to persuade him not to go along with it. He rammed the fear of God into me so fast, Lulu says of her willing seduction behind the altar, I never heard my old mans footsteps.. I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like it. SuperSummary | Literature Study Guides & Summaries He says both. Well, he didn't disappoint here, either, with a fantastic performance as those of you who have seen this already know. A charming conman pretends to be a preacher and romances a roadside revivalist. | If there are three dates, the first date is the date of the original It's a first rate film! He is out for money and pleasure and powerand the ministry is the career which gives him all three. The fundamentalists also have to deal with outright skeptics, like Jim Lefferts, and covert atheists like Dr. Zechlin. In Elmer Gantry, the object of Lewiss satire is not only Elmer himselfwho after the tabernacle fire rescued at least thirty people who had already rescued themselves .but the entire clerical profession and the fundamentalist Protestant dogmas they represent. Institutionalized religion has attracted its fair share of satirical assaults in its time, but Elmer Gantry must surely rank as the most savage in American literature. A lady runs by Elmer in a blue jacket, and her jacket is on fire. Elmer tries to seduce her, but once she has become devoted to him he gets bored with her and treats her cruelly. Billy Sunday (18621935) was a professional baseball player who quit baseball a few years after he had a religious conversion. He charms the congregation and quickly becomes part of the community. But throughout his career he wonders whether there is any value in his work. A novel set from 1920 to 1922 in Zenith, an imaginary midwestern American city; published in 1922. Satire ridicules its subject, with the intention of arousing contempt or scorn in the reader. Before Falconer and Gantry set up their revival in Zenith, a large city which is described as a place where Falconer and Gantry can become famous, Falconers revivals were held in the country and in small towns. Concerning about some preachers exact wealth and power from their congregration . Why does Lewis include him in the book? He thereby makes a defiant gesture, nonetheless, somewhat apart from his customary preoccupation with quixotic heroes whom he could admire for their protests, rebellion, and search for freedom. Elmer Gantry Religion is an aspect of culture that permeates all societies, and much of history is defined by religions in power at the time. He raises money to build a new church. Encyclopedia.com. But unlike Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantrys rise is depicted negatively. He ends up as a minister in the Episcopal church. NATIONALITY: British AFI|Catalog - American Film Institute Since religions are often sold with a spin to attract the most people or a certain group of people, it is important that potential followers examine the reasoning and intentions of religious leaders. She turns to healing the sick not because she has a gift or a calling for it but because it is more profitable than mere evangelizing: the whole evangelist business was limited, since even the most ardent were not likely to be saved more than three or four times. The title character of Elmer Gantry starts Is there really a conflict between science and religion, between reason and faith, or can the two live in harmony? Burt Lancaster is bold and provocative as the title character who is preaching to you one moment and drunk and surly the other. Blessed Virgin, Mother Hera, Mother Frigga, Mother Ishtar, Mother Isis, dread Mother Astarte of the weaving arms, it is thy priestess . They read from the Song of Solomon. He later becomes a lawyer. McGarry is accused by the fundamentalists of heresy, and he does not seem to accept the traditional dogmas of the Methodist Church: [T]he only dogma he was known to give out positively was the leadership of Jesusas to whose divinity he was indefinite.. He spends a year there, and three years in Vulcan, where Cleo gives birth to two children. publication in traditional print. He marries well and eventually obtains a large congregation in Lewis's fictional Midwestern city of Zenith. Meanwhile, Babe Ruth was closing in on the home run record. His ambition knows no bounds. He is a simple, decent, pious man who is loved by his congregation. Light, Martin, The Quixotic Vision of Sinclair Lewis, Purdue University Press, 1975, pp. Elmer Gantry | novel by Lewis | Britannica The attendants give her their money, she leaves after a short period of time, and then the attendants are no better off and short on money. Higher criticism was a method of Biblical criticism that originated in Germany. It is a pity that Lewis did not choose to develop more fully the few exceptions to the prevailing mendacity, including the lightly sketched figure of Reverend Andrew Pengilly. For example, the division between Northern and Southern Baptists is explained in this way: [B]efore the Civil War the Northern Baptists proved by the Bible, unanswerably, that slavery was wrong; and the Southern Baptists proved by the Bible, irrefutably, that slavery was the will of God. Later in the novel, Frank Shallard realizes how threatened conservative clergymen are by scientific knowledge and how inadequate they are to preside over educational institutions. 73738. I just spend two days at my best friends' home for his father's funerals, and during the obligatory moments of life contemplation, we were wondering what was awaiting us all. But was booted out of seminary for seducing the preachers daughter, Lulu Baines (Shirley Jones). Log in here. Hes the all-American salesman: hed believe, really believe, in anything he thought youd buy. After two years as a salesman, Elmer meets Eddie Fislinger at his church in Kansas, and he decides he wants to be a preacher again. Elmer, like other Lewis protagonists, fears marriage. pat hingle elevator accident I love the big onesmurder, lust, cruelty, ambition! She invites Elmer to visit the old Falconer place in Virginia, but when they arrive, she confesses that she is really just Katie Jonas, born in Utica, whose father worked in a brickyard. With the characterization and strong personalities of these two characters, it is easy to assume a one-sided relationship between Gantry and Falconer and their congregants, but this is not the case. On the trip to his new church, he gets drunk and carouses with women; he is discovered and is dismissed from the seminary. In a notable passage Lewis tells us sympathetically of the problems of the rebel, of the preacher or the writer who suffers from sensitivity and innocence: He was supposed to cure an affliction called vice. After two more He is immediately Elmer denounces his old classmate Shallard, who now preaches at a Congregational church in Zenith, calling him practically an atheist. I know its trueits in the Bible. In another service a couple comes forward to ask that Falconer cure the husbands deafness. But they could be healed constantly, and of the same disease.. Where she is quiet and gentle with her manner of preaching, he is all fire and brimstone, literally throwing himself about the audience and inflaming them into repentance. When the pious Eddie leaves the room, all they want to talk about is sex. Elmer Gantry Elmer Gantry is a nuanced look at the world of evangelists and revivals. While managing to cover up certain sexual indiscretions, he is thrown out of the seminary before completing his BD because he is too drunk to turn up at a church where he is supposed to preach. Elmer, after all, is not an idealist; though he ventures forth, he does not do so in the name of chivalry; and, finally, he does not practice the transmuting powers of fancy. REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities, Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, Humans and Nazis: Reevaluating the Conversation of. A hundred and eleven people died that night, including all the gospel-crew save Elmer.. It tells the story of a hypocritical, corrupt, but very successful preacher named Elmer Gantry. Leap Of Faith movie review & film summary (1992) | Roger Ebert As Elmer turns an attractive and charming preacher with a large audience . Since he is ordinarily only a caricature, we cannot consider him a believeable human being; and when Lewis tells us that he has a conscience, we refuse to believe it. His decision to enter the ministry is dishonest and contrary to his own nature, and it costs him the respect and friendship of his agnostic college roommate, Jim Lefferts. ." When hedonistic but charming con man Elmer Gantry meets the beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer, a roadside revivalist, he feigns piousness to join her act as a passionate preacher. 10 Video Games That Need a Live Action Adaptation, 2023's Most Anticipated Sequels, Prequels, and Spin-offs. The Pilgrim's Regress (1933) Gantrys conversion makes him the talk of the campus, and Jim soon moves out. The relentless, unrelieved exposure of religious hypocrisy, while amusingly presented in parts, tends to become wearying. WebElmer Gantry was a labor of love for Brooks, who had dreamed of filming Lewis's novel for more than a decade and spent two years writing the script, which won the Oscar for Best She and Elmer have an affair, which later turns out to be a trick on the part of Hettie and her husband Oscar to blackmail Elmer. Write a brief character sketch of Frank Shallard and describe his role in the novel. Burt Lancaster acted in a number of excellent films during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Nashville Opera production directed by John Hoomes, conducted by William Boggs. Lewiss reputation as a satirist of American life continued to develop in the 1920s with the novels Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), and Dodsworth (1929). If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." -- Albert Schweitzer