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. Religion is an aspect of culture that permeates all societies, and much of history is defined by religions in power at the time. He joins the staff of a metaphysical cult but is fired when he is caught stealing from the collection plate. B. But it's Elmer's past, which catches up with him in Zenith, that may be his, and by association Sister Sharon's, downfall. In a career spanning more than 50 years, she has played a variety of British actress Jean Simmons as Sister Sharon, the evangelist Elmer falls for is similarly too airy. Webthe return nicholas sparks ending explained; Nach Altersklassen. After North invites him to lecture for Napap, Elmer is filled with ambition to combine all the moral organizations in America, with himself as the leader. Traveling with the show is Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Jim Lefferts, who looks at the show and Elmer with a critical eye, although Sister Sharon, William, and Elmer welcome him. TAKE NOTE: The films opening title sequence includes this advice: Due to the highly controversial nature of this film, we strongly urge you to prevent impressionable children from seeing it!, You can read the full Sinclair Lewis novel Elmer Gantry online at Project Gutenberg Australia, here:http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300851h.html, You might want to watch some Patti Pagemaybe Whatever Lola Wants, here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSsH_i6xpf8. In creating the evangelist Sharon Falconer, the author presents himself with a bigger, although more complex, target. 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. He will begin as a preacher in a small town, will enliven it and lift it. She has created an enchanted image of herself, and she has convinced her audience of that image, so that they see her as she wants to be seen, and only we, given glimpses of another self when she reveals herself to Elmer, come to know how complete and insane is her transformation. 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. He had learned to assemble Jewish texts, Greek philosophy, and Middle-Western evangelistic anecdotes into a sermon. Franks mentor has been Father Pengilly, a fanciful figure whom we have already discussed. but I have my doubts ", Wow! 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. At their next revival, the tent catches fire and kills a hundred people, including Sharon, but Gantry climbs over trapped women and escapes. He wears fine clothes, yet he rides the railways like a vagabond. you have to deal with a lot of these two-by-four hick preachers with churches about the size of woodsheds and getting maybe eleven hundred a year, and yet they think they have the right to make suggestions! Fire is mentioned throughout the film, and cinematographer John Alton sets the mood by casting dark red and brown shadows. Those who believe in the doctrines of the church are presented as fools or morons, and are easy targets for malicious fun. Elmer is forced to agree, but promises himself he will find a way out of the engagement. He survived for a while by interpreting some of the Biblical stories as symbols that revealed the glory of God and the leadership of Christ. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were many evangelists, like Elmer and Sharon Falconer in the novel, who traveled around the country conducting revival campaigns for large audiences. The book was banned in Boston and other cities and denounced from pulpits across the United States. Pursuing a career as a freelance writer, Lewis began to produce fiction with ease and ingenuity, and he published five novels from 1912 to 1919. He is a well-educated Englishman in his early thirties with a colorful past. In fact, the question of whether Elmer is a human being or an ogre in the novel is a relevant one. Elmer Gantry is a satirical novel written by Sinclair Lewis in 1926 that presents aspects of the religious activity of America in fundamentalist and evangelistic circles and the attitudes of the 1920s public toward it. But not long after that he lost his faith in God altogether and became an atheist. Elmer Gantry subtitles. Elmer Gantry, like all of Lewiss big novels, is part of one program. J. E. North is the executive secretary of the National Association for the Purification of Art and the Press (Napap). Web1. I am not going to tell you that youre sinners, for which of us is not a sinner? You're all sinners! Burt Lancaster acted in a number of excellent films during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Why does Lewis include him in the book? Binch is a dreadful character who leers at Sharon and has an excessive interest in church fundraising. 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. Then read chapter 30, section 5, where Jim reappears. One such character is the dean of Terwillinger College, who makes a brief appearance in chapter 4, section 3, in which he wonders, in conversation with his wife, whether he has sacrificed too much by going into the ministry. Elmer is subjected to a kind of collective emotional manipulation. The speech is a roaring success. NATIONALITY: British WebElmer Gantry has a great plot. It comes when Elmer regales Pengilly with a self-congratulatory story about the success of Elmers ministry in Zenith. He is friendly but self-important; everyone thinks he is popular, but in fact he has almost no friends. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." -- Albert Schweitzer But throughout his career he wonders whether there is any value in his work. The supporting staff performed equally well. In Elmer Gantry Lewis suggested that what is wrong with the small town, what is wrong with business practices, and even what is wrong with the intellectual attitudes that make it difficult for the scientist to go about his research honestly are all due to the hold Protestantism has on American consciousness. 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. Burt Lancaster's Oscar Winning performance in the title role was well-worth the accolades. Required fields are marked *. The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child. Mrs. Gantry is Elmers mother. McGarry accidentally reveals Shallards doubts to Gantry, so Gantry uses them to defame Shallard as part of a campaign to raise money for a new church building. If a satirist depicts the object of his satire as based on humbug, advocated by humbug, and defended by humbug, he must employ a great deal of wit and fantasy to prevent his attack from seeming cross-grained and peevish. 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. WebElmer Gantry was a labor of love for Brooks, who had dreamed of filming Lewis's novel for more than a decade and spent two years writing the script, which won the Oscar for Best He also notes that the more bizarre and irrational the experience, the more the evangelists value it, but he leaves the reader in no doubt about the contempt with which he views such phenomena: once occurred what connoisseurs regard as the highest example of religious inspiration. Elmer Gantry is a satirical novel written by Sinclair Lewis in 1926 that presents aspects of the religious activity of America in fundamentalist and evangelistic circles and the attitudes of the 1920s public toward it. Jean Simmons appeared in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Drumhead (1991) as Rear Admiral Norah Satie. In Elmer Gantry, the object of Lewiss satire is not only Elmer himselfwho after the tabernacle fire rescued at least thirty people who had already rescued themselves .but the entire clerical profession and the fundamentalist Protestant dogmas they represent. Elmer forces him to resign by questioning his religious beliefs, after which Shallard gets a job with the Charity Organization Society. In 1944, his son Lieutenant Wells Lewis was killed in action in France during World War II. He speaks in many big cities and acquires a new secretary, Hettie Bowler, with whom he has an affair. Word Count: 916. Blessed Virgin, Mother Hera, Mother Frigga, Mother Ishtar, Mother Isis, dread Mother Astarte of the weaving arms, it is thy priestess . They read from the Song of Solomon. At the end he is still eyeing the women in the congregation even as he calls for a crusade to make America a moral nation. ", Jesus was a simple virtuous teacher, . Jim Lefferts is Elmers roommate and his only friend at Terwillinger College. 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. Elmer Gantry is not, however, a movie about making good choices. Some found it repugnant and accused Lewis of grossly distorting his subject matter. Indeed, why doesnt he? Protestant fundamentalism was in part a reaction in the early twentieth century to the development of the higher criticism in Biblical scholarship. 14, Twayne, 1962, pp. 4748; originally published in the Bookman, March 1927. Burt Lancaster gives a fierce, bellicose and frightening performance as a salesman turned preacher, brining religion to the people in this screen adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel. The growth of fundamentalist Christianity in contemporary America is a source of bafflement to those who just don't get it; including, by and large, the movie industry, which may like to end its films with sanctimonious moralising, but which usually reserves the right to serve us substantial portions of sex and violence beforehand. This site built with Project Largo from INN and proudly powered by WordPress. "You're all sinners! He is known in his church for his piety, but in fact he is an atheist. Finally, in the summer of 2005 I took a look after seeing several Burt Lancaster films and being reminded how good an actor he was. The college president declares that he is a born preacher, and everyone urges him to become a minister. It is a pity that Lewis did not choose to develop more fully the few exceptions to the prevailing mendacity, including the lightly sketched figure of Reverend Andrew Pengilly. Bains and Naylor confront Elmer at the Seminary and tell him he must marry Lulu. He is no Harry Zenz or Bruno Zechlin, who have both thought deeply about theology and have emerged as atheists. Gantrys fame continues to grow, and he is soon preaching at churches across America. He raises money to build a new church. Gantry was in the middle of trying to settle down and marry Sharon when she saw that shooting star at the end, and from that moment, she seemed to feel truly touched by God. Jones is too frothy, but when she appears halfway through, she adds bubbles to a long movie that was starting to go flat. He has an affair with his secretary, who then tries to blackmail him, and only escapes ruin because he has a clever lawyer. But we sure view it differently 80 years after the book and 55 years after the movie debuted. At the beginning of the novel, Elmer is drunk, but he is drunk only in the fashion of a hell-raising college boy who talks a little like Huck Finn (his companion, perhaps significantly, is named Jim). So scandalous was Lewiss portrayal of religion that the novel was banned in several cities and denounced from pulpits across the nation. She ignores the warning and they become a great success in the big city. Bains initially forces Elmer to agree to marry Lulu, but later, after Elmer shows him Lulu kissing Floyd Naylor, he orders Lulu to marry Floyd. Terwillinger College and Mizpah Theological Seminary are both fundamentalist institutions. Don Pickens is Frank Shallards roommate at Mizpah Theological Seminary. For the most part, he does not create complex human portraits but caricatures. Happiness is the key to success. But a grand jury investigation found that McPherson had spent a pleasant month in Mexico with a married man from her church. Earthy and real, she and Elmer both sing the hymn Im on My Way, a sort of religious counterpart to I Did It My Way. Elmer romances her only as a way to Sharon, but Rachel is the woman Elmer should have gone with. Opposition to the movement was vicious; Fosdick was ousted from his New York pulpit, and in the Bible Belt and the deep south, fundamentalism cranked itself up into a powerful machine that found expression through anti-evolution measures volumes of blue laws, and the Ku Klux Klan. Mahlon Potts is the influential minister of the First Methodist Church in Zenith. WebDownload scientific diagram | 7 Vibro compaction employing wooden gantry, 1939. It is not merely a case of the good priest versus the bad priest. For two years, he helps her lead revival meetings in large cities, mastering the art of press advertising and fundraising. A lady runs by Elmer in a blue jacket, and her jacket is on fire. A novel set from 1920 to 1922 in Zenith, an imaginary midwestern American city; published in 1922. He rammed the fear of God into me so fast, Lulu says of her willing seduction behind the altar, I never heard my old mans footsteps.. As the film progresses, we learned of Elmer Gantry's past especially his own previous desire to be a minister/preacher. She and Elmer have an affair, which later turns out to be a trick on the part of Hettie and her husband Oscar to blackmail Elmer. Additionally, this positive representation of the necessity of revivals to faltering churches is soured by the probability that Falconers revivals take advantage of the lower class. Lancaster's vitality as a sinful preacher lights up the screen "Love is the morning and the evening star! He marries a woman he does not love. According to such people: A proper school should teach nothing but bookkeeping, agriculture, geometry, dead languages made deader by leaving out all the amusing literature, and the Hebrew Bible as interpreted by men superbly trained to ignore contradictions, men technically called Fundamentalists., Christian beliefs about the proper observance of Sundays also comes under heavy satirical fire in this passage: [T]he Maker of a universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.. She cries out, Oh, dont! Close Alert. 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. , Sinclair Lewis: An American Life, McGraw Hill, 1961, pp. The wife is full of complaints about the life she has had to lead, married to a preacher, criticized by the church women if they thought her clothes werent suitable, sick of having to pretend to be so good when we were just common folks all the time! Her tirade at her husband, who only wants to be allowed to go to sleep, includes the following passage: Oh, dear. Elmer tries to seduce her, but once she has become devoted to him he gets bored with her and treats her cruelly. He is taken with Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) who runs revival meetings. WebIn the 1920s, Elmer Gantry entertains a group of fellow salesmen in a speakeasy with his ribald jokes and easy charm. It tells of people in troubled times trying to sort out life's essential challenges. It seems unlikely that Lancasters character would risk immolation for her. In the mid-1920s, Elmer Gantry is a hard-living, smooth-talking traveling salesman who often uses Christian references in his sales pitches to his largely Christian clients. Elmer is the great man steadily making his way upward in the worldthe man of immoderate personal ambitionand the great man hasnt time for scruples. He denounces other churches for their laxity in condemning sin. Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles on twentieth century literature. A more elaborate kind of fantasy arises out of Lewiss belief that formal religion is based on the self-interest of its leaders. Welcome to the blog of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. The impact of religion on Elmer Gantry symbolizes what it has done to the American spirit. The woman who does match Lancaster is Oklahoma-born Patti Page, making her film debut. For some reason Richard Brooks seemed to think of himself as the man best suited to turning great novels and plays into films, but if the results were at best entertaining ("The Brothers Karamazov", "Cat on a hot tin roof") they tended to fall far short of the originals. Especially ironic is the way he champions love, an emotion he seems incapable of, in his sermons, preaches against ambition, when he himself is so patently ambitious, and organizes crusades against (mainly sexual) immorality, when he has difficulty resisting sexual temptation himself. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Shirley Jones won Best Supporting Actress for her role as the preachers daughter turned prostitute. This was not the last of McPhersons affairs; one of her lovers described the homemade altar in her apartment, in front of which they would make lovewhich is strikingly similar to the scene in Chapter 12 of Elmer Gantry, in which Elmer and Sharon also make love before an altar in her house in Virginia. Nevertheless, Lewis supplies sufficient background to account for Elmers going into the ministry. Dooley, D. J., The Art of Sinclair Lewis, University of Nebraska Press, 1967, pp. He is a born salesman well versed with the bible. I'm not talking about what happens just before the end, but Lewis seems to have had a particular loathing of the conversion experience that is so central to Protestant spirituality. The story of a womanizing con man and an evangelist selling religion all across America was an She brings a Native feminist lens to the contemporary dance world with her body of work, the latest of which is Weave, a collaborative dance project. Lewis finished the book while mending a broken leg on Jackfish Island in Rainy Lake, Minnesota. Lit by fire, Lancaster (Elmer Gantry) preaches to a crowd. In it he established ties with Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. WebI Am Legend Ending Explained: The Ending We Got (And The One We Didn't) 27 November 2022 Slash Film The Magnificent Seven Wasn't Working Until It Added That Unforgettable Score 19 November 2022 Slash Film IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. And yet Lewiss attitude to his character is a little more complex than this long list of his faults might suggest. date the date you are citing the material. 'Until the nineteenth century, actors were classed as Rogues & Vagrants. After exposing the professors secret, Gantry receives an anonymous gift of thirty dimes, which he uses to buy photographs of strippers. External Reviews Gantry is bored by school, but Shallard is drawn to a professor who eventually confesses his atheism to Shallard. You're all sinners. Come! The public has the power to end the careers of Falconer Matthew Gregory Lewis The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. His widowed mother was owned by the church, we are told, and the fact that the boy was fatherless is less important than that the church could not provide Elmer with principles. In another scene, Falconer exhibits pride and materialism when she admits that she always wanted her own church with a giant glowing cross. Lewis researched the novel by observing the work of various preachers in Kansas City in his so-called "Sunday School" meetings on Wednesdays. 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. Encyclopedia.com. Drama. Also, Neil Diamonds 1976 live performance of his song Brother Loves Travelling Salvation Show, here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brt4r_y1y4Q#t=68In 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, Diamond stretches out his hand toward a young woman who places in it the key to what must be her hotel room. To his understanding of Lewiss art, Jones seems to add firsthand knowledge about wartime religious revivals. I have long felt that Burt Lancaster often made movies great because his acting was much bigger-than-life, and he also helped degrade a few movies for this very same reason. WebElmer Gantry, novel by Sinclair Lewis, a satiric indictment of fundamentalist religion that caused an uproar upon its publication in 1927. I'm sure back in 1960, this film must have been pretty controversial, shocking and challenging in its portrayal of evangelistic religion as cynical, money-grabbing and being as much about show business as God. But Elmer does have a program in Napap, which he hopes will make him something of a moral dictator. The sociological factor that works against Elmer is the entire small-town Protestant environment in which he was raised. It is a fairly narrow assault, since Lewiss targets are confined to Protestant churches and revival campaigns, but within that range, Lewiss fire is deadly and continuous. The target of his earthly desires is Beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) a sincere, but fallible woman out to build a ministry. It begins as a satire of revivalism: Elmer is thrown out of a Baptist seminary, becomes a farm implement salesman, and then finds his nicheor pedestalas a Billy Sunday partnered with an Aimee Semple McPherson. Pretending to be outraged, Elmer resigns his position. Burt Lancaster plays the eponymous anti-hero as rogue of such charm that you almost want him to succeed; while the ambiguous character of his partner Sister Falconer (Jean Simmons), who doesn't seem to know herself whether is she a fellow-fraud or a genuine messenger of God, makes a perfect dramatic foil. But both the show and their relationship are threatened when one of Gantry's ex-lovers decides that she must settle a score with the charismatic performer. She turns to healing the sick not because she has a gift or a calling for it but because it is more profitable than mere evangelizing: the whole evangelist business was limited, since even the most ardent were not likely to be saved more than three or four times. Robert J. Higgs. He is immediately But he is caught stealing from the collection and is fired. The Allegory of Lov, Lewis, Sinclair He is immediately taken Sharon believes she is above sin and that she can do anything she wants to because she is Gods messenger. It was the best-selling work of fiction in America for the year 1927, according to Publishers Weekly.[6]. WebWhen hedonistic but charming con man Elmer Gantry meets the beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer, a roadside revivalist, he feigns piousness to join her act as a passionate preacher. Bell, a Black youth who had recently transferred out of Central to the High School for Recording Arts, was on Centrals campus to visit one of his former teachers. Lewiss attack upon the villagesnowhere so embittered as in Elmer Gantry occurs through exposure of the cultural opportunities which the village provides, and these are thin indeed, Most literary materials found in the village are reflections of American popular culture before the turn of the century. ( Elmer Gantry stirs soul, provokes thought was the headline in that mornings Tennessean.) | Amoral and relentlessly ambitious, Elmer builds a statewide and national reputation as a fiery preacher who never tires of denouncing vice, while at the same time feeling no need to curb his own vices, particularly adultery. 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. Napap would bring about nationwide censorship of novels, plays, paintings, and movies. In his ever lustful sights is a voluptuous female preacher. ****. 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. McGarry is accused by the fundamentalists of heresy, and he does not seem to accept the traditional dogmas of the Methodist Church: [T]he only dogma he was known to give out positively was the leadership of Jesusas to whose divinity he was indefinite.. That night she seduces him. So, I'll give him the credit and assume he was just playing his role, not hamming it up too much as it often appears. ." 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. 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. Lulu later meets Elmer again many years later in Zenith, where they resume their clandestine affair. The bill had always been defeated, but it was gaining more votes in every session [407408]. When he finally got the green light, it was United Artists that agreed to distribute the film. Your email address will not be published. He falls for her on sight, and follows her to Lincoln, Nebraska, for her next revival meeting. Wallace Umstead is a student Mizpah Theological Seminary who becomes the secretary of the Zenith Y.M.C.A. The result is as discouraging, as horrifying, as it would have been if Huck had been converted by Miss Watsons Bible stories. On the train he meets a traveling salesman who invites him for a drink, which results in Elmer failing to keep his appointment at the church. He is a complete hypocrite and a complete opportunist. Light, Martin, The Quixotic Vision of Sinclair Lewis, Purdue University Press, 1975, pp. WebElmer Gantry. The Trylon features 50 deluxe rocker seats, a 20-foot screen, and a pair of Century Model SA 35mm projectors. Elmer Gantry Book Details Author Bio for Lewis, Sinclair Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was a noted American writer. John K. Roth. 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.
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