'Until the nineteenth century, actors were classed as Rogues & Vagrants. | 99107. They make enough money to build a temple, and Sister Sharon falls for Elmer. It might seem that the last thing in the world Lewis wanted was sympathy for Elmer Gantry, whom he regarded, he told Allen Austin years later, as a hypocrite through and through. Yet he wrote in the Nation in 1928, Actually, I like the Babbitts, the Dr. Pickerbaughs, the Will Kennicotts, and even the Elmer Gantrys rather better than anyone else on earth. Furthermore, he told Betty Stevens that the Babbitts were my children and I wanted to reform them. The church provided all the music he ever heard, his only oratory except for campaign speeches by politicians, all his painting and sculpture, and all his philosophic ideas. Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) is a slick traveling salesman who is a boozer and a dog hound. Elmer himself had owned two volumes of Conan Doyle, one of E. P. Roe, and a priceless copy of Only a Boy. His literary inspirations were McGuffeys Readers, Nick Carter, Bible stories, and such stock characters as Little Lame Tom who shamed the wicked rich man that owned the handsome team of grays and the pot hat and led him to Jesus. After he had become a celebrity, Lewis usually managed to avoid controversy over his books by being out of the United States when they appeared. Liking the idea of having power over an audience, Elmer convinces himself he has been called to the ministry. Higher criticism was a method of Biblical criticism that originated in Germany. For the most part they are hypocrites, not even believing the doctrines they preach to their congregations every week. She appears to Elmer as a saint, arms outstretched, stately, slender and tall, passionate. After a brief interlude with Mrs. Evans Riddles New Thought movement, and teaching Prosperity classes on his own, Elmer joins the Methodist Church. Contact UA. 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. The Baptist influences to which Elmer is subjected in his youth, particularly at Terwillinger College and Mizpah Theological Seminary, are handled very roughly. To his understanding of Lewiss art, Jones seems to add firsthand knowledge about wartime religious revivals. Gantry uses his own quick wit and Bible knowledge to become an indispensable part of Sister Sharon's roadshow, but his past soon catches up with him in the form of Lulu Bains, now a prostitute. Frank Shallard is a student at Mizpah Theological Seminary, but he doubts the literal truth of the Bible. because Joness Lulu is a silly, air-spun girl. His quest for God is a secular quest. Did he approve earthly monarchies or rebel against them? Every decision Elmer makes thereafter is one of compromise. Even Gantry wouldnt have been such a bad fellow if hed been, say, a salesman. Only a very curious moral outlook could have permitted the creator of such a monster as Elmer Gantry to say that his characters lack of a sense of decency would not have been objectionable if he had changed his profession . The novel's protagonist, the Reverend Dr. Elmer Gantry, is initially attracted by booze and easy money (though he eventually renounces tobacco and alcohol) and chasing women. 12630. As a boy, the Baptist church was all he knew. 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 may have a rather unsavoury past but the one thing he can do better than anyone is sell himself, pots, pans, anything. McPherson was involved in a scandal in 1926. This abridged version of Sinclair Lewiss novel of the same name focuses on Elmer Gantry, a con man expelled from seminary school, and Sister Sharon Falconer, a character loosely based on evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. No! He has an affair with female evangelist Sharon Falconer, which ends with her death in a flaming tabernacle. Life opened before him, clean, joyous, full of the superb chances of a Christian knighthood. John K. Roth. Gantry befriends a famous criminal attorney, T. J. Rigg, who becomes his adviser and confidant. Fired from the ministry after going drinking rather than contacting his new church, he works for two years as a traveling salesman. He retains his theological navet, however, and it is clear that his modernism is not sufficient. 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. Movie Forums . WebElmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) is a slick traveling salesman who is a boozer and a dog hound. At the novels beginning, Gantry is captain of the football team at the rowdy campus at Terwillinger College, a Baptist school. He advises Elmer not to denounce vice directly, by naming names and giving addresses of illegal drinking places, because the owners of such buildingswho of course have no knowledge of any illegal activitiesare often leading church contributors and attacking them would jeopardize their support for the church. She was reported missing after swimming off Venice Beach, California, turning up five weeks later in Mexico, claiming she had been kidnapped. The public has the power to end the careers of Falconer Nevertheless, it is possible to recognize the working of quixotic elements throughout the novel, especially in the fancifully conceived Sharon Falconer and in the character who is a foil for Elmer, Frank Shallard. Overhead traveling cranes are used in industrial buildings to lift and transport heavy jobs, machines, and so on, from one place to another. He is a well-educated Englishman in his early thirties with a colorful past. Elmer Gantry and his roommate, Jim Lefferts, have traveled from their college in Kansas to Cato, Missouri, to see their girlfriends. And he has involvements with several of his church secretaries. TRIVIA: Six degrees of Star TrekThe six degrees of Star Trek holds that any movie connects to Star Trek within 6 steps. He is immediately taken Its hero makes his way, with the help of native cunning and oratorical ability, through almost the whole domain of religion in the United States. He is a complete hypocrite and a complete opportunist. One device after another is employed to introduce him to new denominations and round out the picture. eNotes.com, Inc. An example is the bizarre marriage ceremony which takes place between Elmer and evangelist Sharon Falconer before her grotesque shrine. Gantry is bored by school, but Shallard is drawn to a professor who eventually confesses his atheism to Shallard. Im not! Hes the all-American salesman: hed believe, really believe, in anything he thought youd buy. Elmer will end up using all of these strategies himself, to great success. Later judgments have also been mixed. After collecting money from the patrons, Gantry takes a drunken barfly back to his hotel room. Besides the rise of world fundamentalism and revelations of sexual abuse by big-name evangelists and Catholic priests, Elmer Gantry calls up popular figures such as Sarah Palin. Elmer is, obviously enough, an example of the latter. He marries well and eventually obtains a large congregation in Lewis's fictional Midwestern city of Zenith. 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. She is also an insane perversion of the sanctity of the elect, for she declares to Elmer, I cant sin! Dr. Bruno Zechlin is Professor of Greek, Hebrew, and Old Testament Exegesis at Mizpah Theological Seminary. He is not a deep thinker and does not really care whether the Baptist doctrines he preaches are true or false. ), Elmers friend Jim Lefferts, a freethinker, has a somewhat wider list than Elmer: an encyclopedia, Pickwick, Swinburne, Ingersoll, and Paine. (540) 7.7 2 h 26 min 1960 13+. He also thinks that Baptist leaders are word-splitting, text-twisting, applause-hungry, job-hunting, medieval-minded second-raters . Horace Carp hates the Baptists and wants to switch to the more upscale Episcopalians as soon as possible because this will give him a better social position in which he will be able to marry a nice rich girl. Brother Karkis only wants his divinity degree so he can get a better paying job. https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/elmer-gantry, "Elmer Gantry Light examines what he sees as quixotic elements in the novel, especially in the characters Sharon Falconer and Frank Shallard. 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. Sharon is supposed to be a firebrand, based on evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, part Houdini, part Teddy Roosevelt, who preached a dramatic God. There is a good priest whose career runs counter to that of the bad priest Gantry, but he ceases to be a priest. In 1928, he preached in a tent in Long Beach, California to more than 5,000 people, and on his return to America the following year, when he was nearly seventy years old, he attracted even larger crowds, including 15,000 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The movie provided Burt Lancaster, Shirley Jones, and Richard Brooks all with Oscars and it has become a classic. Finally, the Elmer Gantry script is here for all you quotes spouting fans of the Burt Lancaster movie. Sharon is a woman of many selves: she is imperious and efficient, but also vulnerable. As Elmer turns an attractive and charming preacher with a large audience . But was booted out of seminary for seducing the preachers daughter, Lulu Baines (Shirley Jones). If there are two dates, the date of publication and appearance Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html.