Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Indeed, why doesnt he? Burt Lancaster is bold and provocative as the title character who is preaching to you one moment and drunk and surly the other. He is treasurer of the Congregational church, but Elmer succeeds in getting him to support the Methodists instead. North, who is in charge of the National Association for the Purification of Art and the Press, known as Napap. Dr. Otto Hickenlooper is a prominent Methodist minister in Zenith, and one of Elmers rivals. Literally, in one case, when the tabernacle catches fire at the end of the movie. You'll all burn in hell! In creating the evangelist Sharon Falconer, the author presents himself with a bigger, although more complex, target. Elmer is soon preaching to crowds larger than almost all the churches in Zenith. In addition to the MLA, Chicago, and APA styles, your school, university, publication, or institution may have its own requirements for citations. But Frank rages on at the inconsistencies in doctrine, the contradictions in the Bible, the evil men who are ministers, and the fools and dullards who work about him in Zenith: Gantry, Bishop Toomis, Chester Brown, Hickenlooper, and PottsPotts especially, who gets his idea of human motives out of George Eliot and Margaret Deland, and his ideas of economics out of editorials in the Advocate, and his idea as to what he really is accomplishing out of the flattery of his Ladies Aid! Frank adds that he doesnt find Jesus an especially admirable characterJesus was more vain and furious than a leader should be. The preacher meets someone in the town, too: a waitress ( Lolita Davidovich) with a crippled young son. Gantry maintains friendships with most pastors in Zenith but loathes Philip McGarry, a pastor in a poor neighborhood who has been a friend and mentor to Shallard. GARRISON BROTHERS DISTILLERY He hires a new secretary, Hettie Dowler, who replaces Lulu as his mistress. WebA second-division British psychedelic band with a tangled history, Elmer Gantry & the Velvet Opera recorded a couple of albums in the Pink Floyd/Soft Machine/Tomorrow/Nice mold in the late '60s without coming close to establishing a solid identity of their own. We're confident we succeeded and have no doubt you'll agree. Using his sales techniques, especially on one of Sister Sharon's underlings, the nave Sister Rachel, Elmer is able infiltrate her entourage. Elmer Gantry, like the big Lewis novels that preceded it, is centrally concerned with the struggle between the old and the new. I am not going to tell you that youre sinners, for which of us is not a sinner? Published in 1922 He plans to quit the church and get a good job selling real estate. In the following essay excerpt, Dooley calls Elmer Gantry a picaresque novel that begins as a satire of revivalism.. He is no Harry Zenz or Bruno Zechlin, who have both thought deeply about theology and have emerged as atheists. But in the house of Elmers mistress, Lulu Bains, they sing and read Seeing Nelly Home, Old Black Joe, Beulah Land, Farm and Fireside, and Modern Priscilla. The Chickasha Daily Express (Chickasha, Okla.), Vol. 57, No. 175, He takes care to point out that people return again and again to get converted, which would seem to negate the idea that they are saved in a once in a lifetime experience. FAQ Chester Brown is a prominent Methodist preacher in Zenith and one of Elmers rivals. British actress Jean Simmons as Sister Sharon, the evangelist Elmer falls for is similarly too airy. What Made Buster Keatons Comedy So Modern? | The New Yorker He is so good that it is hard to Those who believe in the doctrines of the church are presented as fools or morons, and are easy targets for malicious fun. However, the date of retrieval is often important. Elmer Gantry may have a rather unsavoury past but the one thing he can do better than anyone is sell himself, pots, pans, anything. Elmer Gantry: The Trap of Hypocrisy and Greed - Studying Elmer Gantry When he at last finds the courage, now that he is out of the church, to speak his mind, he is viciously attacked and blinded by fundamentalist fanatics. Burt Lancaster, Shirley Jones each won an Oscar for 1960's Elmer Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. It was the best-selling work of fiction in America for the year 1927, according to Publishers Weekly.[6]. The Allegory of Lov, Lewis, Sinclair Elmer reads Browning, Tennyson, Dickens. Originally a London soul band called Five Proud Walkers, they threw their lot in with The angriest of Lewiss novels, Elmer Gantry seems to arise from impulses that invert the quixotic. The ships captain who in the storm took counsel with the orphaned but righteous child of missionaries in Zomballa. 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, Billy Sunday (18621935) was a professional baseball player who quit baseball a few years after he had a religious conversion. Elmer Gantry is a picaresque novel. The Trylon features 50 deluxe rocker seats, a 20-foot screen, and a pair of Century Model SA 35mm projectors. Within the Protestant church, a battle rages between the traditionalists, or fundamentalists, who believe in the literal truth of the Bible, and the liberals, who believe that some parts of the Bible may be understood in a symbolic sense. Schorer analyzes the novels lack of conflict and dramatic counterpoint; there are no obstacles to Elmers success, since the good characters are weak and play only peripheral roles and there are no competing orders of value, since everything is corrupt. Initially, he is an enemy of Elmer and tries to prevent him from becoming president of the student body for the second time. Gantry considers Shallards company an obstacle to his plans with Lulu, so he engineers Shallards resignation with accusations of apostasy. When Lefferts asks Reverend Quarles, the college president, an awkward question about some passages in the Bible, Quarles tells him not to question the ways of the Lord. He meets Elmer on a steamer home from Europe and invites him to lecture on behalf of Napap. Richard Brooks spent years trying to bring ELMER GANTRY to the screen. 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 calls out to God for help. publication in traditional print. SuperSummary | Literature Study Guides & Summaries For the most part they are hypocrites, not even believing the doctrines they preach to their congregations every week. Elmer Gantry 4953. Lewis made the point that Protestantism has nurtured America in the same way it has nurtured Elmer. Connected to this it must be said that I did think the plot was a little thin at times and the strength of film does lie in the general portrayal of the world rather than the nitty-gritty of any one character or thread (although even the thin bits are pretty good). Be the first to contribute. Oh, my dear people, my dear people, I am not going to preach tonightwe are all so weary of nagging sermons about being nice and good! He becomes so successful that he becomes indispensable to Sister Sharon's roadshow. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago who espouses a very liberal theology. One thing he is aware of is that professing belief serves his purposes very well, and for all he knows, every word of Baptist or Methodist dogma might be true. Elmer Gantry 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. How long would a drunkard listen to the counsel of one who had never been inside a saloon? online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. When a charismatic preacher comes to town for a revival meeting, he seeks out Gantry and tricks him into attending. I give this movie a 10 only because there is nothing above that. The steady accumulation of damning portraits of those whose spiritual home is the Protestant church, and the lack of any serious counterweight to them, led Rebecca West, in a hostile review of Elmer Gantry that first appeared in 1927, to write that Lewis lacked the necessary requirement of the satirist, which was to fully possess, at least in the world of the imagination, the quality the lack of which he is deriding in others. Wests point was that Lewis effectively exposes the charlatans and the way they misuse their power, but fails to show how that religious power might better be used. 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. WebElmer Gantry. WebToday universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be "invited" to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. Leap Of Faith movie review & film summary (1992) | Roger Ebert In it he established ties with Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. (film) Elmer Gantry is a 1960 film about a con man and a female evangelist selling religion to small town America. Later, in the middle of a church service, Gantry realizes that he misses Hettie but quickly spots a new choir member whom he hopes to get to know better. Elmer Gantry | novel by Lewis | Britannica Lewiss first real success came with Main Street (1920), the book that made him famous. because Joness Lulu is a silly, air-spun girl. She sinks into Elmers arms. It is the hour! On his return, Elmer meets J. This film is not only good; it misses being great by a narrow margin. The congregation slowly begins to join back in and Gantry begins to solo with the Mel Gibson aside, you don't expect to see a sympathetic portrayal of religion in the movies; from 'Night of the Hunter' onwards, the dodgy preacher has been a more common character than the saintly one, and there's another kicking for the born-again movement in 'Elmer Gantry'. 12631. Binch is brought on for one five-page section of chapter 14, when Elmer and Sharon happen to meet him in Joliet and lunch with him. The subject was tastefully handled and written for adults. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church-a saver of souls who lives a life This site built with Project Largo from INN and proudly powered by WordPress. Nothing reveals Lewiss isolation from an overview of life more clearly than the way he dismisses religion. Gary H. Mayer, "Love is More Than the Evening Star: A Semantic Analysis of Elmer Gantry and The Man Who Knew Coolidge". Elmer Gantry" by Sinclair Lewis He is immediately attracted to her and also sees her revival meetings as a way to make money. Elmer is beset on all sides; his mother, the YMCA, the president of the college, even a visiting evangelistall single him out in their prayers and exhortations. In Lincoln, he persuades her to let him speak at the meeting about how he, a businessman, was converted. There are glimmers of this in Sister Sharon Falconer, like when she admits that she knows Gantry is lying but allows him to continue preaching because she believes it is for the greater good.