Elmer Gantry (1960)

"Love is the morning and the evening star." Elmer Gantry
“The first thing I know he rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man's footsteps!” Lulu Baines

Burt Lancaster has long been a favorite actor of mine. By savvy career decisions, Lancaster avoided being typecast as a swashbuckler in the mold of a Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. or an Errol Flynn, a portrait he was fully capable of pulling off with his dynamic athletic skills and charm. Forming his own production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, Burt made it a rule to perform a challenging role for each swashbuckler the studios cast him in. As a result, Lancaster made many memorable pictures in several genres, including Run Silent, Run Deep, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Birdman of Alcatraz, Ulzana’s Raid, and Lawman.

Elmer Gantry (1960), in which Lancaster plays the title character, is the story of a con artist; a flim-flam man; a huckster; a traveling salesman; always ready with a dirty story, a sly wink, or a surreptitious drink to grease the wheels of progress. One evening, during the holiday season, Elmer finds himself somewhere in the Great Plains in a smoky saloon with a bunch of fellow businessmen drinking. Elmer captivates the group with his leering stories and gift of gab. He amazes himself when he easily collects a tambourine full of money for some Salvation Army sisters who are seeking donations from the denizens of the den of iniquity. When he later sees a Revival meeting tent he soon realizes there is a better way to cash in on his salesman’s patter…

Sister Sharon Falconer, portrayed by Jean Simmons (The Robe, Guys & Dolls, Spartacus), is purer than the driven snow, an angel who preaches visions of a rose-colored heaven. Even though she apparently sees through the fast talking Elmer, she takes him on as a preacher and they treat their audiences to a sort of good cop, bad cop routine with Gantry providing the fire and brimstone and Sister Sharon the visions of sugarplums.

As Gantry gets used to his presentation, he works the crowds and becomes the star attraction of the tent show. Ambitious, he urges Sister Sharon to take her Revival to the big city. After vacillating, she agrees. The big city at first takes to the likeable Gantry, however, a spurned woman (Shirley Jones) turns the tables on him for past sins and the fickle crowd deserts him as quickly as it took to him, becoming a mob and humiliating him with rotten fruit and worse. The ending is a little disconcerting; as the fallen angel Sister Sharon is lost in the conflagration of her own “tabernacle” while the unflappable Elmer appears to be unaffected and able to continue on with his next scheme…

In addition to the undeniable star power afforded by Lancaster and Simmons, the film has a bevy of big names in the supporting cast, including Arthur Kennedy (They Died With Their Boots On, Lawrence of Arabia), Dean Jagger (Twelve O’clock High, Bad Day at Black Rock), Shirley Jones (Oklahoma, The Music Man), and a whole bunch more familiar faces. Jones won an Oscar for her portrayal of prostitute Lulu Baines who had been the preacher’s daughter who Gantry soiled then jilted years earlier.

At the time of its release in 1960, Elmer Gantry was hard-hitting enough to win best actor (Lancaster), best screenplay (Richard Brooks), and best supporting actress (Shirley Jones). However, in this more cynical time, I believe some of the shock and horror of an expose of dishonesty in popular evangelism does not have the impact it did at the time of the movie’s release. Everyone can remember the televangelist Jim and Tammy Bakker scandals; the Jimmy Swaggart scandals; the Oral Roberts scandals, ad nauseam in the closing decades of the twentieth century. Still, it should be remembered that Elmer Gantry pointed out this hypocrisy a good two or three decades before it was actually exposed.

The screenplay has a few difficulties, especially the lack of repentance of the Gantry and Sharon characters and the ending which seems to be a hurried decision just to END the thing.

Elmer Gantry is available on DVD from MGM and is presented in 1.66: 1 theatrical format. The meager extras, which MGM specializes in, include subtitles in Spanish and French (no English!) and the theatrical trailer.

Watch a good film tonight!




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening