Elmer Gantry - Gott ist im Geschäft

It's the prohibition era. Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) is a slick traveling salesman who is a boozer and a dog hound. He is a born salesman well versed with the bible. He is so good that it is hard to tell the difference whether he's sincere or lying. He is one haunted by his checkered past and his immorality. He is taken with Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) who runs revival meetings. She's a true believer. He badgers her until she allows him to preach. He becomes so successful that he becomes indispensable to Sister Sharon's roadshow. Bill Morgan sees thru Elmer and tells Sharon that in 1917 he was expelled from the seminary for seducing the deacon's daughter. She ignores the warning and they become a great success in the big city. Then his past comes back to haunt him in the form of Lulu Bains (Shirley Jones) who is now a prostitute.

Burt Lancaster gives such a big performance. It is so big that it always has a tinge of falsehood. His laugh is so outrageous that it plays both sides of the divide. It's this big performance that is so memorable. Jean Simmons is the perfect compliment. She is the embodiment of purity of spirit. Burt definitely deserves his Oscar win. I can see some people taking offense from the depiction of religious revival. However I see a great role model in Sister Sharon. It's also a tale of salvation for Elmer Gantry.

Elmer Gantry the novel came out in 1925 and it took 35 years to get it to the screen. But it certainly was worth the wait. The movie provided Burt Lancaster, Shirley Jones, and Richard Brooks all with Oscars and it has become a classic. But we sure view it differently 80 years after the book and 55 years after the movie debuted.

Inherit the Wind and Elmer Gantry came out in the same year and both were set in the Twenties. Both dealt with fundamentalist religion and the power it held. Both films got Oscar nominated for best film and for Best Actor for it's first billed male player.

In 1960 when you saw both films they were viewed as tales of a bygone era. Evangelists like Elmer Gantry and Sister Sharon Falconer have the kind of power that thankfully we don't give the fundamentalist community now. Even seeing film clips of Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson, they seemed quaint and old fashioned. Fortunately we'd outgrown the nonsense of that era.

But Sinclair Lewis proved to be a prophet. No one could ever have dreamed in 1960 that fundamentalist Christians would have the political power they do today. What Lewis if he were alive today would do with Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee and the rest of that crowd would really be something. Elmer Gantry is alive and well. Some might even call it a resurrection.

And Elmer's a part that comes once in a lifetime to a player. Liar, conman, womanizer and likable on top. You've got to be a real extrovert to play that part. So Richard Brooks got perhaps one of the biggest extroverts ever to hit Hollywood.

Burt Lancaster was born to play Gantry, in fact he'd had something of a dress rehearsal in the part in The Rainmaker. During those sermon scenes, some of which are taken from Billy Sunday's actual sermons, you know he's giving out with nonsense and you still get taken in by his charm. Note the relationship between Lancaster and agnostic reporter Arthur Kennedy. Kennedy knows he's a conman, but still they get along just great.

It was a shame that Jean Simmons was neglected by the Academy for her portrayal of Sharon Falconer. Sharon is a true believer, but she's also a romantic as the real Aimee Semple McPherson was. And the woman had needs which Elmer is only too glad to fulfill.

The real Aimee was also an outrageous character herself, but I believe a decent soul at heart. During the Depression, her tabernacle set up a soup kitchen that fed thousands. In fact Anthony Quinn, growing up in Los Angeles at the time, recalled in his memoirs working for his and his family's supper as a volunteer there. Quinn had nothing but praise for Aimee, she was the difference in whether his family ate or not on many a day.

Shirley Jones got a career salvation with her Oscar winning role as Lulu Baines, prostitute who's out for vengeance. A fine singer, she came along unfortunately when musicals were winding down. That Oscar for Best Supporting Actress insured a continuing career for her.

Arthur Kennedy as the investigative reporter is whose perspective we view the film from. He'd had five trips to the Oscar World Series without a victory, might have been nice if this one had been a sixth. His is the voice of reason, of true compassion, of truth in fact the voice of Sinclair Lewis himself.

Another of Sinclair Lewis's great characters, George F. Babbitt, makes an appearance. Edward Andrews got probably his career part as Babbitt, hypocritical businessman to the max. He was as born to play Babbitt as Lancaster was to play Gantry. He could also have been given an Oscar nomination.

Elmer Gantry is a great film, a prophetic film, proving it sure can happen here.

Based on the muckraker Sinclair Lewis' novel, and superbly translated to the screen by Richard Brooks (In Cold Blood , The Professionals, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), this story of huckster-ism by religion is a masterpiece.

Burt Lancaster player the greatest role of his career, getting his only Oscar for his performance. Lancaster, so good in such films as From Here to Eternity, Atlantic City, and Seven Days in May, was spellbinding as the salesman for God.

Shirley Jones (The Music Man, "The Patridge Family," was simply delicious as Gantry's first conquest, and now a "five-buck hooker," that he left behind: "Oh, he gave me special instructions back of the pulpit Christmas Eve. He got to howlin' "Repent! Repent!" and I got to moanin' "Save me! Save me!" and the first thing I know he rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man's footsteps!" 1960 was a great year for movies, and this was certainly one of the best of that year, and one of the best of all time. If you want to see real acting, this film should be on your "must-see" list.

I give this movie a 10 only because there is nothing above that.

I first saw this movie as a kid on TV not that long after it came out. It hasn't aged one bit. That it came out the same year as Inherit the Wind, another masterpiece, is interesting but not surprising. Hollywood was turning the spotlight on the dangers of religious fundamentalism that have since become far more powerful in this country.

Everything about this movie is first rate. Lancaster's acting isn't acting; it is better than that. He simply becomes Gantry, and you believe in him - as he believes in himself, from time to time - completely. The script is powerful, the directing first rate.

This is one of those movies that I sit down and watch when it shows up on TV, no matter how many times I have seen it before. It really is one remarkable movie.

"Elmer Gantry" is an amazing film that does not seem dated at all, having lost none of its bite or appeal with the passing of time. Taken from the classic Sinclair Lewis novel of the same name, director Richard Brooks garnered an Oscar for Best Screenplay for his adaptation, and Burt Lancaster won his sole Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Elmer Gantry. Gantry is an over-the-top opportunistic traveling salesman who teams up with evangelist Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) to promote religion in 1920's America. Gantry turns out to be the perfect publicity compliment to Sister Sharon, who, unlike him, is a true believer. Where she is quiet and gentle with her manner of preaching, he is all fire and brimstone, literally throwing himself about the audience and inflaming them into repentance.

Burt Lancaster commands the screen: all flashing teeth, athletic energy, charisma, and wild hair, using his own physical prowess to great advantage. The angelic and lovely Jean Simmons, who had legions of adoring male fans when she was in her ethereal prime, portrays Sister Sharon (loosely based on a well-known real-life revivalist of the early 1920's, Aimee Semple McPherson, about whom I'd heard from my grandmother) in a manner reminiscent of her character in "Spartacus" - she was the perfect choice for this role, as was Lancaster for his.

Shirley Jones was awarded the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her lively portrayal of prostitute Lulu Bains, whose past history with Gantry comes back to haunt him, with some of the best lines in the film - gleefully laughing as she dances about a room full of her fellow prostitutes, she recounts that "He rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man's footsteps!" Watching Burt Lancaster in his prime use his athletic ability (he was a circus acrobat before he became an actor) and physical grace helps make his performance truly electrifying. And he also manages to believably evolve Elmer Gantry from loud-mouthed salesman to a sympathetic and honest human being over the course of the film.

The top-notch supporting cast includes Arthur Kennedy, Patti Page, Dean Jagger, and John McIntire.