It applied the methods of historical and literary analysis in order to determine the authorship, date and place of composition of the books of the Bible. At Mizpah Theological Seminary, Elmer and his fellow students all smoke in their dormitory, even though smoking is practically forbidden. Lewis preferred the liberal Birkhead to the conservative Stidger, and on his second visit to Kansas City, Lewis chose Birkhead as his guide. In Lincoln, he persuades her to let him speak at the meeting about how he, a businessman, was converted. There From the exceptionally talented pen of noted author Sinclair Lewis comes this entertaining story of a fast-talking, yarn-spinning vacuum salesman with the natural gift of persuasion. In his travels he comes across the traveling revival show of evangelist Sister Sharon Falconer. Gantrys descendants stretch from Neil Diamonds 1969 song Brother Loves Travelling Salvation Show to the 2012 film The Master, by Paul Thomas Anderson (who also made Magnolia). While Gantry seeks and eventually gets forgiveness from Sharon, tragedy strikes when she finally manages to get out of her revivalist tent and opens a permanent church. After exposing the professors secret, Gantry receives an anonymous gift of thirty dimes, which he uses to buy photographs of strippers. A popular singer with a voice like French silk pie, Page is most famous for her hit song Tennessee Waltz. When she first appears onscreen, shes got such presence you might think she was the main heroine. Fascinating - 1960's "Elmer Gantry," based on the Sinclair Lewis novel, could be made today with nothing changed and be as powerful - maybe more powerful - than it was in 1960. Judson Roberts, the enthusiastic, apparently confident evangelist who converts Elmer, admits to himself that his preaching is dishonest. According to Mark Schorer, in his introduction to Sinclair Lewis: A Collection of Critical Essays, No novel in the history of American literature outraged its audience so completely, and very few novels in American literature had a larger immediate audience. The book was banned in Boston and other cities and denounced from hundreds of pulpits. In 1905, after two years study, he is ordained. We are all bored by tired old men explaining the Bible through their noses! 'Until the nineteenth century, actors were classed as Rogues & Vagrants. Many reviewers have already remarked on this terrific movie far better than I can, so this message is really for younger people interested in serious film. Happiness is the key to success. Some day he would be a bishop, yes, but even that was nothing compared with the fact that he had won a victory over his lower nature. He kneels in prayer, but in that instant he sees Cleo and at once thinks of seducing her. He is an opportunist, a rogue, a charlatan. To his understanding of Lewiss art, Jones seems to add firsthand knowledge about wartime religious revivals. He is a gigantic, larger-than-life character. But was booted out of seminary for seducing the preachers daughter, Lulu Baines (Shirley Jones). ****. Im grateful to them for proving the book. Very few observers, however, thought that he had been as fair and dispassionate as he pretended; one comparatively balanced review of the novel was entitled Red Lewis in a Red Rage, and his former professor William Lyon Phelps declared in an interview that the book must have been written when Lewis was literally foaming at the mouth . Edwin Muir was one of the few critics who found some complexity in Lewiss attitude toward his central character; he thought this complexity was due to the division of intentions which was evident in other Lewis novelsLewis wanted to write both a satire and a novel, to indict his hero and to sympathize with him at the same time. Whatever I may choose to do, though it might be sin in one unsanctified, with me God will turn it to his glory. Jim is the college freethinker and the only person who has any influence on Elmer. Lynnell Mickelsen: Why all the conspiracy theories and pearl-clutching in this years school board race. The fundamentalists also have to deal with outright skeptics, like Jim Lefferts, and covert atheists like Dr. Zechlin. He is a well-educated Englishman in his early thirties with a colorful past. Now in college, Gantry and his roommate, Jim Lefferts, spend much of their time drinking and chasing women, but their primary amusement comes from ridiculing their classmates incessant religious proselytizing. Reverend Dr. Willoughby Quarles is president of Terwillinger College. 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. (film) Elmer Gantry is a 1960 film about a con man and a female evangelist selling religion to small town America. He wont harm you! | FAQ The affair threatens to destroy Gantry, but Rigg hires a detective to besmear Hettie, and she and her husband are forced to sign an affidavit declaring Gantrys innocence. The film's slant may be predictable, and it also suffers from some common flaws of its era (an ugly, intrusive Andre Previn score, and occasionally wooden acting); but it's hugely entertaining nonetheless. Ad Locust is a traveling salesman for the Pequot Farm Implement Company who befriends Elmer on the train to Monarch. Light, Martin, The Quixotic Vision of Sinclair Lewis, Purdue University Press, 1975, pp. 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. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. This film is not only good; it misses being great by a narrow margin. "You're all sinners! Yet at the fire, it is Sharon who is heroic. T. J. Rigg is a famous criminal lawyer and a trustee of Wellspring Methodist Church in Zenith. A charming conman pretends to be a preacher and romances a roadside revivalist. Despite this though the film is still quite engaging and enjoyable as it delves into this world with a certain amount of glee; the fact that it peels off this world to look at Gantry specifically is a bit of a shame because it cuts under that focus a little. The public has the power to end the careers of Falconer All those who profess to be religious in the novel are shown as hypocrites or morons; the best we can expect, apparently, is a nominal profession of belief for the sake of convenience: the good shepherd is the one who sees that his lambs are fed with material food, not stale spiritual claptrap. Gantry, too. Was a member of the of the bogus Fleetwood Mac band, that the then manager Clifford Davis send on a US tour in 1974 when the real Fleetwood Mac rejected the tour. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb As Elmers career begins its ascent, we learn something more of the images which fill his mind: For all his slang, his cursing, his mauled plurals and singulars, Elmer had been compelled in college to read certain books, to hear certain lectures, all filled with flushed, florid polysyllables, with juicy sentiments about God, sunsets, the moral improvement inherent in a daily view of mountain scenery, angels, fishing for souls, fishing for fish, ideals, patriotism, democracy . Should creationism be taught in public schools? He is taken with Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) who runs revival meetings. Anywhere. In "Elmer Gantry," Burt Lancaster gives one of the all-time great screen performances. Frank suffers from self-consciousness about his occupation; it is the same sense of doubt which Lewis has expressed about the writing career: Frank still resented it that, as a parson, he was considered not quite virile; that even clever people felt they must treat him with a special manner; that he was barred from knowing the real thoughts and sharing the real desires of normal humanity.. He really shines as a tarnished, immoral salesman who spends Christmas at a bar and leaves with one of the ladies during the Great Depression in the heartland. 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. Over seventy-five years after it first appeared, Elmer Gantry still has power to shock as well as amuse. He is soon invited to preach at one of her meetings. Tries to give the kid a break. Eddie is an enthusiastic Christian who becomes a student at Mizpah Theological Seminary and later a minister in western Kansas. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like it. 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. The purpose of Napap is to make life conform to the ideals agreed upon by the principal Christian Protestant denominations. This would be accomplished by combining into one association all the moral organizations in Americathe Anti-Saloon League, the Lords Day Alliance, the Watch and Ward Society, and the Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Moralsand then lobbying for legislated morality. He ends up as minister of a large church in a West Virginia mining town. GENRE: Fiction, nonfiction This is tantamount to an admission that the church is happy to receive money that is tainted by the very practices it denounces so vehemently. Nevertheless, it is soon apparent that he has gone too far; to him, Christianity is not only untrue, but inconceivable. She dresses in exotic outfits such as Grecian robes, and uses a gold and white pyramidal altar. Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. The following was written for REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities. She sinks into Elmers arms. In another service a couple comes forward to ask that Falconer cure the husbands deafness. Its a movie about driving passions so hot and strongfor a sale, for salvationthey burn a person up. 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. For the evangelists, the irrational is valued more highly than the rational, but for the novelist, the reverse holds true. But what perhaps made Elmer Gantry seem like such an act of outrage to so many readers is that Lewis did not simply treat religion in relation to other aspects of American life; he saw it instead as the molder of basic attitudes, most of which were, in his opinion, bad. These blossoming words, these organ-like phrases, these profound notions, had been rammed home till they stuck in his brain, ready for use. He successfully schemes to become pastor of the prestigious Yorkville Methodist Church in New York and the new executive secretary of Napap. The movie was not just a group of scenes depicting sex and violence. There was a timebetween the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11when Elmer Gantry might have felt outdated. But unlike Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantrys rise is depicted negatively. Salesman Elmer Gantry, salesman teams up with evangelist Sister Sharon Falconer to sell religion to 1920s America. After she admits to Elmer that she loves to dance, she says, Oh, of course I roast dancing in my sermons, but I meanwhen its with people like us, that understand, its not like with worldly people, where it would lead to evil. It is not hard to see how she and Elmer are a perfect match. 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. But we sure view it differently 80 years after the book and 55 years after the movie debuted. He returns to it in the context of Sharons revival meetings. 2 hr 26 min. Bishop Toomis possesses a complete Dickens, a complete Walter Scott, Tennyson, Macaulay, Ruskin, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Winston Churchill, Elizabeth of the German Garden, and books on travel and nature study: How to Study the Birds, My Summer in the Rockies, and Pansies for Thoughts. Welcome to the blog of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. Others praised its accurate reporting and its denunciation of hypocrisy, comparing Lewis to great satirists such as Voltaire and Swift. Lewis made the point that Protestantism has nurtured America in the same way it has nurtured Elmer. The film is beautifully visual and as Elmer Gantry's past comes haunting again to tarnish the tent revival and watch Gantry and Sister Sharon fall again. He is friendly but self-important; everyone thinks he is popular, but in fact he has almost no friends. The tents are filled with people clamoring to see Sister Sharon Falconer. Though the bulldog of the football team in college, Elmer shows his cowardice during the fire in Sharon Falconers tabernacle (which is built out over the water): In howling panic, Elmer sprang among them, knocked them aside, struck down a girl who stood in his way, yanked open the door, and got through it the last, the only one, to get through it. He then ran out a little into the surf and dragged in a woman who had already safely touched bottom, and then at least thirty more who had already rescued themselves. Elmer Gantry, like Arrowsmith, is an account of career development. In Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis uses the character of Elmer Gantry to represent, without nuance or ambiguity, what he viewed as the prototypical evangelical minister of his day: ambitious and charismatic; driven by his lust for women, money, and power; and completely unrepentant in his scorn for those who believe in the faith he deceptively proclaims. retrospective of Burt Lancaster films continues at the Trylon Microcinema through November, the month marking the 100th anniversary of Lancaster birth (Nov. 2, 1913), withElmer Gantryon November 11 and 12. He is invited by a group of scholars to go on a lecture tour to oppose religious fundamentalism, but his first lecture, in a city in the southwest, he is interrupted by local toughs. Simulation Theory: How is Religion Part of It? His flamboyant preaching style makes a big impression on the small town. Billy Sunday (18621935) was a professional baseball player who quit baseball a few years after he had a religious conversion. WebElmer Gantry; Keith Phares, Sharon Falconer; Jennifer Rivera. 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. He charms the congregation and quickly becomes part of the community. WebMemorable Moments. D. J. Dooley remarks that to Lewis Christianity is not only untrue, but inconceivable. Dooley feels that Elmer Gantry is flawed because it is neither a realistic portrayal of the state of religion in America nor a caricature whose manifest unfairness can be forgiven because of the wit and humor which have gone into it. True, unless, taking our cue from Sharon Falconer and the multitude of fraudulent evangelistic minor characters in the book, we begin to see Elmer Gantry as Lewiss triumphant depiction of a land of demons and grotesques of all sizes and shapes, created from the extremes of human impulse and incapable of self-awareness because they are already beyond it, Elmer included. Elmer escapes by knocking other people out of the way, but Sharon is burned to death. Pengilly sees through him with the spiritual eye of an eagle, and asks, Mr. publication online or last modification online. Later he was to learn that references to Dickens, Victor Hugo, James Whitcomb Riley, Josh Billings, and Michelangelo give a sermon a very toney Chicago air. Though he does not have quixotic benignity, helpfulness, or idealism, he does have visions of how the ministry can be useful to him; he sees thousands listening to himinvited to banquets and everything , and he dreams of hundreds of beautiful women [who weep] with conviction and rush down to clasp his hand., In addition to his hypocrisy and his ignorance, Elmer is a liar, a sinner, and a coward. Like everything else in the Lone Star State, our dreams were big from the start. She appears to Elmer as a saint, arms outstretched, stately, slender and tall, passionate. He could hear her wailing, Dont be afraid! Elmer is soon preaching to crowds larger than almost all the churches in Zenith. External Reviews Starring Shirley Jones Arthur Kennedy Burt Lancaster Patti Page Jean Simmons. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." -- Albert Schweitzer Then from 1918 to 1920 he is in Sparta, where the population is 129,000. He later becomes a lawyer. It would end Sunday entertainment, curtail freedom of speech, and put restrictions on the rights of Catholics. Paperback June 3, 2014. In a very Elmer Gantry moment, starting at 2:54, after singing the Lord gave us two good hands, brothers and sisters, one for the givin and one for the takin,