Only the novels It Cant Happen Here (1935) and Kingsblood Royal (1947) have stood the test of time. The Faithful Dog who saved his master during a terrific conflagration . (Later Elmer runs from a conflagration, saving no one but himself. As in the violent, unpredictable climax, Elmer Gantry lives and dies on a kind of roiling energy, a reaction that seems to be happening The film leaves the realities of these mystical happenings up to interpretation, and so gives the congregants active, if small, roles in the narrative. I am above sin! Go out slowly! Elmer Gantry One Summer: America, 1927 In 1905, after two years study, he is ordained. By what name was Elmer Gantry (1960) officially released in India in English? She appears to Elmer as a saint, arms outstretched, stately, slender and tall, passionate. The film is basically how Hollywood, in the late 1950s, viewed tent religion in the early part of the twentieth century. Shortly after the publication of Elmer Gantry, H. G. Wells published a widely syndicated newspaper article called "The New American People", in which he largely based his observations of American culture on Lewis' novels. Elmer at first returns her affection, and they get married. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." -- Albert Schweitzer Nevertheless, Lewis supplies sufficient background to account for Elmers going into the ministry. He manipulates his way into Sister Sharon Falconer (played brilliantly by the late Jean Simmons who should have won an Oscar for her performance in this role). Like everything else in the Lone Star State, our dreams were big from the start. 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. The woman who does match Lancaster is Oklahoma-born Patti Page, making her film debut. Later on , newspapers publicize Preacher preys and he becomes into a discredited preacher . There Elmer Gantry - Opera - Music - The New York Times He goes to live with his niece and dies within two years. As in Babbitt and Arrowsmith, we are made aware that there are sinister forces combining to strike at the very foundations of American liberties. He will begin as a preacher in a small town, will enliven it and lift it. For such a high-spirited boy as Elmer, this was such a limited, stifling environment to grow up in that it effectively steered him away from the kind of occupation that would have suited him much better: It was lamentable to see this broad young man, who would have been so happy in the prize-ring, the fish-market, or the stock exchange, poking through the cobwebbed corridors of Terwillinger.. He says both. Most distressing of all, says Frank, the sermons of the preachers are agonizingly dull. So Frank leaves the church temporarily to enter the army where he learns to be common with common men; he schools himself further with Ethan Frome, Pre Goriot, Tono-Bungay, and Renans Jesus. In a scene where Gantry and Falconer are hoping to get funding to set up their revival in the city of Zenith, lack of attendance is straightforwardly given as the reason for seeking out the revival. Lancaster's performance is so rich, so real, that the viewer knows this man, knows what Gantry smells like (sweat and eau de cologne) and what he eats (big slabs of beef). There they meet their host, Deacon Bains, and his daughter Lulu, an ingenue whom Gantry continually tries to seduce. Source: Martin Light, Mantrap and Elmer Gantry, in The Quixotic Vision of Sinclair Lewis, Purdue University Press, 1975, pp. The one completely positive character in the book, Frank Shallard, wants to make Christianity an active force for social good; as it is, it is a negative force, a threat to freedom. It applied the methods of historical and literary analysis in order to determine the authorship, date and place of composition of the books of the Bible. Elmer Gantry the novel came out in 1925 and it took 35 years to get it to the screen. He also forms a Committee on Public Morals, persuades the police to make him a temporary lieutenant, and personally leads raids on the red-light districts. I am really and truly sanctified! The impact of religion on Elmer Gantry symbolizes what it has done to the American spirit. Matthew Gregory Lewis Lewiss reputation as a satirist of American life continued to develop in the 1920s with the novels Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), and Dodsworth (1929). The clash between fundamentalists and liberals comes to a dramatic and violent climax in the final incident involving Shallard. I am not going to tell you that youre sinners, for which of us is not a sinner? He became a Presbyterian preacher, and was famous for his energetic, fiery sermons in which he denounced liberalism, the theory of evolution, and the evils of drinking. Bains promises Elmer that he will make Lulu marry Floyd. It is easy to see why Burt Lancaster won an oscar for his excellent portrayal of Elmer Gantry. Elmer Gantry There is a definite give and take between Gantry and Falconer and the congregants in Elmer Gantry. Ill lead you safely through the flames! When Elmer tries to make her escape, she pushes him away. There was a timebetween the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11when Elmer Gantry might have felt outdated. Of course, turmoil closes in on them as their inherent instincts of love overpower their adherence to the Christian principles they attempt to profess. Sharon believes she is above sin and that she can do anything she wants to because she is Gods messenger. Did he approve earthly monarchies or rebel against them? How would you describe his demeanor? The Baptist influences to which Elmer is subjected in his youth, particularly at Terwillinger College and Mizpah Theological Seminary, are handled very roughly. Initially, he is an enemy of Elmer and tries to prevent him from becoming president of the student body for the second time. Im not! (540) 7.7 2 h 26 min 1960 13+. Russia is a European country. The target of his earthly desires is Beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) a sincere, but fallible woman out to build a ministry. 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. 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. Elmer 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. "Elmer Gantry" can be considered the quintessential exploration into the omnipresent duality existing between a person's religious faith and simultaneous character defects. Hettie Dowler becomes Elmers secretary at Zenith when Elmer is already famous. What sort of a man is Jim? Wallace Umstead is a student Mizpah Theological Seminary who becomes the secretary of the Zenith Y.M.C.A. 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. Many of the people attending the revivals would then be working-class individuals. There, Gantry befriends the Methodist bishop and is appointed pastor of a church in Banjo Crossing. Sin, Sin. While Gantry seeks and eventually gets forgiveness from Sharon, tragedy strikes when she finally manages to get out of her revivalist tent and opens a permanent church. After two years as a traveling salesman, Gantry attends a revival meeting and is immediately bewitched by the evangelist Sharon Falconer. In Bible stories, in the words of the great hymns, in the anecdotes which the various preachers, quoted, he had his only knowledge of literature. Lewis exercises his bitterness against the failures of the church by making the church itself accountable for Elmers being no better educated. One night, Hetties husband catches them together; blackmail threats follow, and Gantry realizes that Hettie is part of the plot. Mark Schorer, in his biography of Lewis, records a remark that Lewis made to his friend Richards Brooks in 1946. 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 . You're all sinners. Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/elmer-gantry. 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. In fact, the film's theatricality can almost be seen as a strength, for it's constructed like a well-written play. He graduated from Yale in 1908 and worked in various jobs in the publishing industry, including editor, reporter, manuscript reader, and reviewer. The following was written for REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities. This is tantamount to an admission that the church is happy to receive money that is tainted by the very practices it denounces so vehemently. Lewis preferred the liberal Birkhead to the conservative Stidger, and on his second visit to Kansas City, Lewis chose Birkhead as his guide. You're all doomed to perdition. He became known in the 1920s for his books that satirized the spartan materialism and intolerance that Can there ever have lived a clergyman with Elmers astonishing range of vices: his chronic insincerity, his hypocrisy, his lust, his overweening ambition, his cynicism, his appalling behavior to his family? Lewis said, flatly enough, that religion in the United States has become stifling; that, like the pioneer economy and the pioneer mentality of which it is a manifestation, it has become a threat instead of a benefit. Besides being an effective satire targeted against religious hypocrisy, Elmer Gantry provides insight into the clash of cultural forces in America in the 1920s. Gantry befriends a famous criminal attorney, T. J. Rigg, who becomes his adviser and confidant. He is not a deep thinker and does not really care whether the Baptist doctrines he preaches are true or false. publication online or last modification online. An example is the bizarre marriage ceremony which takes place between Elmer and evangelist Sharon Falconer before her grotesque shrine. She was reported missing after swimming off Venice Beach, California, turning up five weeks later in Mexico, claiming she had been kidnapped. Awards On his return, Elmer meets J. Gary H. Mayer, "Love is More Than the Evening Star: A Semantic Analysis of Elmer Gantry and The Man Who Knew Coolidge". And when his hero joins the Methodist Church, Lewis takes full advantage of the opportunity to satirize another sect. Or maybe as something more. Elmer is soon preaching to crowds larger than almost all the churches in Zenith. Source: David J. Dooley, Aspiration and Enslavement, in The Art of Sinclair Lewis, University of Nebraska Press, 1967, pp. He cribs some passages from a book and then gives a rousing sermon. Elmer Gantry - Wikipedia This site -- maintained by the faculty but also involving our students, our alumni, and the graduate teaching assistants who help us in our classes -- discusses the relevance of the study of religion, in particular, and the liberal arts, in general, for understanding both the past and present, by seeing religion as but one element of wider cultural practices. Web1. Elmer joins the Methodists and is sent to the small town of Banjo Crossing, where he falls in love with Cleo Benham, the daughter of a church trustee. This script is a transcript that was painstakingly transcribed using the screenplay and/or viewings of Elmer Gantry. Playing the title character, Lancaster won his first and only Oscar, for Best Actor. With the characterization and strong personalities of these two characters, it is easy to assume a one-sided relationship between Gantry and Falconer and their congregants, but this is not the case. Now famous, Elmers ambitions know no bounds, especially when he starts to work with the National Association for the Purification of Art and the Press. Elmer Gantry was drunk, the novel opens, and Lancaster is terrific as the boozing, womanizing traveling salesman.Gantry is a believer, of a sort. While managing to cover up certain sexual indiscretions, he is thrown out of the seminary before completing his BD because he is too drunk to turn up at a church where he is supposed to preach. A lady runs by Elmer in a blue jacket, and her jacket is on fire. Elmer Gantry He ends up as minister of a large church in a West Virginia mining town. It is the Morning and the Evening Star. In order to conquer her, he must use his extensive repertoire of biblical quips, quotes and bawdy antidotes. 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. But they could be healed constantly, and of the same disease.. What Made Buster Keatons Comedy So Modern? | The New Yorker The second is the date of And yet Lewiss attitude to his character is a little more complex than this long list of his faults might suggest. 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. Charles W. Ferguson, in the Bookman, described Elmer Gantry as a glorious lampoon, although he also commented that the novel was a social commentary and not a work of fictional art. His flamboyant preaching style makes a big impression on the small town. They also decried the growth within the church of the higher criticism, that sought to understand the Bible based on modern methods of scholarship. He looked back and saw her, quite alone, holding up the white wooden cross which had stood by the pulpit, marching steadily forward, a tall figure pale against the screen of flames.. 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. He is a well-educated Englishman in his early thirties with a colorful past. Lit by fire, Lancaster (Elmer Gantry) preaches to a crowd. At times I wondered if he wasn't overacting, but his character called for a very animated salesman-type person. He begins a course of home study, in a brief episode which must play ironically against Benjamin Franklins self-education. 99107. As a sojourner on this earth, she goes on, trying to explain how in these months she has kept her sanity and her faith, I dont feel terribly entitled. Disappointingly though, Pengillys arguments do not rise above the commonplace.