Your email address will not be published. Given, too, that the film's production was 1960, we can say that "Elmer Gantry" does not reflect the current, 21st century, state of religious fundamentalism in America. Gantry turns out to be the perfect publicity compliment to Sister Sharon, who, unlike him, is a true believer. It may be that the essential lesson which Lewiss experience of America taught him was that the barriers to education, self-discovery, and fulfillment were formidably guarded by exploiters and cranks: thus his anger; thus his satire. WebElmer turns to Rigg for help, who hires a detective to dig up incriminating evidence against Hettie and her husband. It's strange, the way this movie opens and builds so strongly, and then has such an unsatisfying ending. If a satirist depicts the object of his satire as based on humbug, advocated by humbug, and defended by humbug, he must employ a great deal of wit and fantasy to prevent his attack from seeming cross-grained and peevish. He is a simple, decent, pious man who is loved by his congregation. Jim is the college freethinker and the only person who has any influence on Elmer. Elmer Gantry has been called the purest Lewis by Schorer. At the start of the novel Elmer is a college football player so little given to piety that he is known as Hell-cat. At the end of the book he is Dr. Gantry, minister of the large Wellspring Methodist Church in Zenith, with hopes of becoming the head of a national moral-rearmament organization, the National Association for the Purification of the Arts and the Press (Napap). Burt Lancaster gives a fierce, bellicose and frightening performance as a salesman turned preacher, brining religion to the people in this screen adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel. Literally, in one case, when the tabernacle catches fire at the end of the movie. But unlike Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantrys rise is depicted negatively. Gantry considers Shallards company an obstacle to his plans with Lulu, so he engineers Shallards resignation with accusations of apostasy. Close Alert. Jones is too frothy, but when she appears halfway through, she adds bubbles to a long movie that was starting to go flat. Gantry, why dont you believe in God?. Go out slowly! Elmer Gantry is not, however, a movie about making good choices. There are several other minor characters who are introduced with no apparent purpose other than to serve as victims of the authors anti-religious inclination. Some while later Shallard goes on a lecture tour to speak against fundamentalism. There is a definite give and take between Gantry and Falconer and the congregants in Elmer Gantry. AKA: Elmer Gantry, le charlatan. Her main supporter is worldly William Morgan (Dean Jagger) who believes in Falconer, and sees Gantry and Lefferts for the opportunistic impediments they are. Gantry is bored by school, but Shallard is drawn to a professor who eventually confesses his atheism to Shallard. The adverse publicity helped sales, and 175,000 copies were sold in less than six weeks. After college, he attends a Baptist seminary and is ordained as a Baptist minister. They hypnotize themselves, says Jim Lefferts to Elmer, trying to persuade him not to go along with it. I kept asking him about steelwhat its made of, what its used foruntil one day he said in exasperation, I dont care about steel. But it certainly was worth the wait. The bill had always been defeated, but it was gaining more votes in every session [407408]. I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like it. Kraus used []. There is a definite give and take between Gantry and Falconer and the congregants in Elmer Gantry. 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. Cecil Aylston is Sharon Falconers assistant. If all of them are there, he says. Elmer loathes him but Frank Shallard regards him as a friend. On his first visit in 1889, he held campaigns in cities from Boston to San Francisco. | After several failed efforts to hear God calling him to the ministry, Gantry shares a bottle of whiskey with Jim and emerges with the feeling of having received the call. WebSpecialties: Welcome to Garrison Brothers, home of the first and oldest legal whiskey distillery in Texas. We are all bored by tired old men explaining the Bible through their noses! Oh, my dear people, my dear people, I am not going to preach tonightwe are all so weary of nagging sermons about being nice and good! In Zenith, Elmer meets Bishop Toomis, a prominent figure in the Methodist Church. During the 1930s and 1940s, Lewis published a further nine novels, as well as plays and short stories. It took a long time before I watched this movie on VHS. I guess it's hard to imagine that your beloved one has faded into nothingness, so religion brings you a certain psychological comfort in knowing that there's such a thing as a soul and that, depending on a man's life, it gets the treatment it deserves. To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories. Harry Zenz is a student at the Mizpah Theological Seminary. 23 Feb. 2023 . There is a great deal of fantasy in the novel, but it is weird and crude and goes badly with the realism. WebMemorable Moments. Finally, the Elmer Gantry script is here for all you quotes spouting fans of the Burt Lancaster movie. (Courtesy of Degebo, Berlin, Germany.) Should creationism be taught in public schools? Elmer Gantry is as lost as those who followed in the tent revivals that swept the country during hard times. The character of Sharon Falconer was loosely based on events in the career of the Canadian-born American radio evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who founded the Pentecostal Christian denomination known as the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 1927. He just didn't do subtle very well, as his acting tends to magnify the focus on himself--which, once again can be either good or bad. Elmer Gantry is a satirical novel written by Sinclair Lewis in 1926 that presents aspects of the religious activity of America in fundamentalist and evangelistic circles and the attitudes of the 1920s public toward it. He cribs some passages from a book and then gives a rousing sermon. The subject was tastefully handled and written for adults. Webthe return nicholas sparks ending explained; Nach Altersklassen. Elmer is beset on all sides; his mother, the YMCA, the president of the college, even a visiting evangelistall single him out in their prayers and exhortations. Everyone congratulates him on his conversion. 5 Mar. Despite their reservations about the dignity of revival-style preaching, many of the pastors agree that it would be best for their congregations to get excited about Christianity again in hopes that this would subsequently bolster attendance. It seems unlikely that Lancasters character would risk immolation for her. ****. One should imagine instead, I think, that she might have the same great-grandaddy as President Lyndon Baines Johnson: Baptist preacher George Baines. The select mini requires bed leveling and will eventually need you to do a gantry support modification as it is only supported on one side. When he teams up with evangelist Sister Falconer, he sells religion from a tent to 1920's America, helping Falconer with her aim of getting out of the tent into her own temple and building a proper congregation. publication online or last modification online. He falls for her on sight, and follows her to Lincoln, Nebraska, for her next revival meeting. , Sinclair Lewis: An American Life, McGraw Hill, 1961, pp. It is Elmers Napoleonic ambition to combine all such organizations to the greater glory of himself: He would combine in one association all the moral organizations in Americaperhaps, later, in the entire world. WebIf he is not completely redeemed at the film's end, he indicates that his love for the ill-fated Sharon Falconer is real and not mere lust.The character of Sister Falconer, as played by "Elmer Gantry", directed by Richard Brooks, is one of his best. Word Count: 916. His mind was shaped most of all by his souvenirs of his travel-adventures. For several sessions of congress he had backed a bill for a federal censorship of all fiction, plays, and moving pictures, with a penitentiary sentence for any author mentioning adultery even by implication, ridiculing prohibition, or making light of any Christian sect or minister. Elmers mind is shallow; he simply does not have the capacity for serious thought about such issues. . Opposition to the movement was vicious; Fosdick was ousted from his New York pulpit, and in the Bible Belt and the deep south, fundamentalism cranked itself up into a powerful machine that found expression through anti-evolution measures volumes of blue laws, and the Ku Klux Klan. But he is caught stealing from the collection and is fired. She is looking to work in Applied Business Anthropology. Tries to give the kid a break. Although it's difficult to know if Gantry's spiritual motivation is genuine or merely a ploy, throughout the film, one is kept guessing. The Trylon features 50 deluxe rocker seats, a 20-foot screen, and a pair of Century Model SA 35mm projectors. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Copyright 2022 The University of Alabama 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. During the opening service, with a crowd of more than four thousand, fire breaks out. After the fire and Sharons death, Elmer is conscience-stricken. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." -- Albert Schweitzer Lancaster is absolutely mesmerizing as "Elmer Gantry." Ed. The pious but stupid Eddie complains that [E]verything we Baptists stand for is threatened by those darn so-called liberals . He is referring to the practice of open communion, which is favored by liberals, as opposed to the closed communion of the fundamentalists, according to which only Baptists are allowed to participate in the rite. In his travels he comes across the traveling revival show of evangelist Sister Sharon Falconer. If there are two dates, the date of publication and appearance In creating the evangelist Sharon Falconer, the author presents himself with a bigger, although more complex, target. The two make a successful onstage pair, and their chemistry extends to romance. Nellie Benton is Jim Lefferts girlfriend when he is a student. And he has involvements with several of his church secretaries. Reverend Dr. Willoughby Quarles is president of Terwillinger College. Cleo Benham is the high-minded daughter of Nathaniel Benham. External Reviews This is a film that has outlasted its time. He uses the church to further his own ambitions for power and fame. He soon discovers he has a gift for preaching, and he loves the feeling of power he gets when his sermons move his congregation. Its a movie about driving passions so hot and strongfor a sale, for salvationthey burn a person up. Good drama that had the potential to be one of the greats. Not now! His flamboyant preaching style makes a big impression on the small town. He plans to quit the church and get a good job selling real estate. He retains his theological navet, however, and it is clear that his modernism is not sufficient. They also name Billy Sunday. Based on the evidence in the novel, there is some truth in this comment. Discuss the issue of creationism and evolution. Af They make enough money to build a temple, and Sister Sharon falls for Elmer. It was on the steamer home that he met and became intimate with J. E. North, the renowned vice-slayer, executive secretary of the National Association for the Purification of Art and the Pressaffectionately known through all the evangelical world as the Napap. Mr. North was not a clergyman (though he was a warm Presbyterian layman), but no clergyman in the country had more furiously pursued wickedness, more craftily forced congressmen, through threats in their home districts, to see legislation in the same reasonable manner as himself. Gantry becomes her lover, but loses both her and his position when she is killed in a fire at her new tabernacle. At Mizpah Theological Seminary, Elmer and his fellow students all smoke in their dormitory, even though smoking is practically forbidden. Fired from the ministry after going drinking rather than contacting his new church, he works for two years as a traveling salesman. Welcome to the blog of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. Source: James Lundquist, Moralities for a New Time, in Sinclair Lewis, Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1973, pp. REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities, Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, Humans and Nazis: Reevaluating the Conversation of. WebThere is a bit of a rough edit in the middle, because the scene is actually over 8 minutes long, and I needed to get it down to under 5 minutes. But was booted out of seminary for seducing the preachers daughter, Lulu Baines (Shirley Jones). Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. 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. As Granty flashes with his silver smile but he has a dark past . He preaches at the service that gets Elmer converted. (540) 7.7 2 h 26 min 1960 13+. Barney Bains is a deacon at the Baptist church in Schoenheim and the father of Lulu. But shifting moods again, she can acknowledge that she is just an ignorant young woman with a lot of misdirected energyand even an evil one: Oh, I hate the little vicessmoking, swearing, scandal, drinking just enough to be silly. I know its trueits in the Bible. Interviewing key stakeholders in the company, gathering and organizing information, analyzing data and preparing reports that summarize finding. Duke mentioned that he would love to play Puck, []. He later becomes a lawyer. When Deacon Bains discovers Gantrys affair with Lulu and forces him to propose, Gantry tricks another man into an entanglement with Lulu and is released from the engagement. One of the first scenes with Sister Sharon Falconer involves her asking for donations from these people. It seemed that perhaps the world had taken a step away from irrational belief. 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. Simulation Theory: How is Religion Part of It? WebJones had probably read in the library at Schofield Barracks or from Lowneys collection Sinclair Lewiss Elmer Gantry, a satirical novel about a hypocritical revival preacher. Real name: David Terry. The clash between fundamentalists and liberals comes to a dramatic and violent climax in the final incident involving Shallard. Frank finds some shame in being a preacher and longs to prove that he is nevertheless a real man. Not only had he been swathed in theology, but all his experience had been in books instead of the speech of toiling men. In fact, the film's theatricality can almost be seen as a strength, for it's constructed like a well-written play.