Elmer Gantry

The novel Elmer Gantry, written by Sinclair Lewis in 1927, caused a sensation. It was a huge bestseller, but earned condemnation from religious leaders for its cynical portrayal of a huckster preacher. The film, released in 1960 and one of the nominees for Best Picture, toned down the rhetoric some. It made the title character more complex, and didn't paint religion as being entirely corrupt. But I would imagine it was still pretty hot stuff, given the time period.

Burt Lancaster starred, and he won the Oscar for Best Actor. It's a performance that's completely over the top, but necessarily so, because this guy has no subtlety, he's always on. His way of laughing--throwing his head back as if it were on a pivot, and flashing what seem like a hundred teeth, was mimicked by comedians, but is essential to the character.

When we first see him, he's an appliance salesman, somewhere in the plains, telling dirty jokes and getting drunk. He lives on the margins, traveling like a hobo in boxcars. But when he stumbles upon a tent-revival meeting featuring a charismatic evangelist (Jean Simmons) he's intrigued. He maneuvers to gain her good graces, and ends up part of the act.

What I found interesting about Lancaster's performance, as well as in the script by Richard Brooks (who also directs), is that Gantry's motives are never spelled out. Sure, he's a con man at heart, but we can never really be sure that he doesn't believe what he's saying when he's preaching to the assembled. It is clear that he falls genuinely in love with Simmons. But as to his ultimate goal--we don't know what it is. Perhaps he doesn't, either.

Lancaster vies for Simmons' attention with her business partner, played coolly by Dean Jagger. The show is being covered by a cynical, atheist reporter (Arthur Kennedy), who seems modeled on H.L. Mencken. Kennedy and Lancaster are at odds, (Kennedy tells Lancaster that he fits right in at the revival, because "every circus needs a clown") but have a mutual respect for each other. When a prostitute from Lancaster's past (Oscar-winner Shirley Jones) frames Lancaster with incriminating photos, Kennedy turns them down for his newspaper.

Elmer Gantry is richly entertaining. It's a little long at two-and-a-half hours (and told only about half of the story from the book), but never dull. The colors are gaudy, keeping with the sordid underbelly of the plot, and the acting, not just by Lancaster, is done at full tilt. Jones, who was known for wholesome musical roles like Oklahoma!, overdoes it as the wronged fallen woman, but I thought Simmons found a good balance in her role, which was modeled after the real-life evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.

If anyone objects to this film on moral grounds, it may be because it basically says that religion, just like toasters or vacuum cleaners, is a commodity that needs to be sold. One key scene has a group of ministers debating the benefit of tent revivals, knocking them as entertainment. The town businessman, who sees dollar signs in his eyes, says that there is no difference between the two.