Elmer is forced to agree, but promises himself he will find a way out of the engagement. Web1. 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. Web1. External Reviews Starring Shirley Jones Arthur Kennedy Burt Lancaster Patti Page Jean Simmons. 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. He raises money to build a new church. But Page plays the small role of choir leader Sister Rachel. 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. Like Sharon, she drew huge crowds and practiced faith healing. Elmer starts his career as a Baptist and then joins up with a charismatic but equally unprincipled female revivalist preacher. It was on the steamer home that he met and became intimate with J. E. North, the renowned vice-slayer, executive secretary of the National Association for the Purification of Art and the Pressaffectionately known through all the evangelical world as the Napap. Mr. North was not a clergyman (though he was a warm Presbyterian layman), but no clergyman in the country had more furiously pursued wickedness, more craftily forced congressmen, through threats in their home districts, to see legislation in the same reasonable manner as himself. After a brief interlude with Mrs. Evans Riddles New Thought movement, and teaching Prosperity classes on his own, Elmer joins the Methodist Church. Protestant fundamentalism was in part a reaction in the early twentieth century to the development of the higher criticism in Biblical scholarship. He joins the staff of a metaphysical cult but is fired when he is caught stealing from the collection plate. Dooley, D. J., The Art of Sinclair Lewis, University of Nebraska Press, 1967, pp. ." Refer to each styles convention regarding the best way to format page numbers and retrieval dates. Novels for Students. Reverend Dr. Willoughby Quarles is president of Terwillinger College. He befriends Frank Shallard. 10 Video Games That Need a Live Action Adaptation, 2023's Most Anticipated Sequels, Prequels, and Spin-offs. END After exposing the professors secret, Shirley Jones won Best Supporting Actress for her role as the preachers daughter turned prostitute. Of the other characters, Frank Shallard and Dr. Philip McGarry are examples of the liberal tendency in the church. After two more These blossoming words, these organ-like phrases, these profound notions, had been rammed home till they stuck in his brain, ready for use. Quarles has no time for vain arguments that lead nowhere! Quarles is hostile to the kind of free intellectual inquiry that the liberals advocate, and he relies instead on prayer and faith. Lancaster is absolutely mesmerizing as "Elmer Gantry." Cleo Benham is the high-minded daughter of Nathaniel Benham. North, who is in charge of the National Association for the Purification of Art and the Press, known as Napap. It is easy to see why Burt Lancaster won an oscar for his excellent portrayal of Elmer Gantry. She sinks into Elmers arms. Welcome to the blog of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. He is immediately Falconer gives of herself throughout the film to help her congregants, often going outside her comfort zone to preach to angry crowds and secure the donations she sees as a necessary evil for the continuance of her sermons. Bill Morgan sees thru Elmer and tells Sharon that in 1917 he was expelled from the seminary for seducing the deacon's daughter. Close Alert. Gantry befriends a famous criminal attorney, T. J. Rigg, who becomes his adviser and confidant. Lewis seems to have had a particular loathing of the conversion experience that is so central to Protestant spirituality. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. comment. Special Effects winner, with presenters Polly Bergen and Richard Widmark. The evangelist Sharon Falconer, although she is not attached to any particular church, is no exception to the anti-religion theme. Johnny Zell auf LinkedIn: Happy Birthday # 75..Barbara Lynn Elmer Gantry was first published in the United States by Harcourt Trade Publishers in March 1927, dedicated by Lewis to the American journalist and satirist H. L. Mencken. At the church, Elmer tries to seduce Lulu Bains, the daughter of one of the deacons, while Shallard warns him against even the appearance of evil. because Joness Lulu is a silly, air-spun girl. Elmer Gantry When he teams up with evangelist Sister Falconer, he sells religion from a tent to 1920's America, helping Falconer with her aim of getting out of the tent into her own temple and building a proper congregation. Is he successful? Tracing two years in th, Matthew Gregory Lewis Prayings the cheapest first-rate medicine I know, he says. That night she seduces him. gantry Sin, Sin. A typical picaresque narrative chronicles the exploits of a rogue, an immoral but not criminal character who lives by his wits. 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. Fired from the Seminary, he is hired as a traveling salesman of farm implements. The title character of Elmer Gantry starts You're all sinners. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. 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. Elmer Gantry Satire ridicules its subject, with the intention of arousing contempt or scorn in the reader. Burt Lancaster is bold and provocative as the title character who is preaching to you one moment and drunk and surly the other. Another minor character who serves as one small brick in the vast anti-clerical edifice that is Elmer Gantry is Dr. Howard Bancock Binch, a renowned defender of the literal truth of the Bible. He searches for his better nature: he will start again, never lie or cheat or boast. Some characters from Lewis even read Sinclair Lewis himself; the Reverend Philip McGarry asks his friend Frank Shallard to forget that you have to make a new world, bettern the Creators, right away tonightyou and Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells and H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis (Lord, how that book of Lewis, Main Street, did bore me ).. Gene Warren and Tim Baar, The Time Machine. On the trip to his new church, he gets drunk and carouses with women; he is discovered and is dismissed from the seminary. I guess it's hard to imagine that your beloved one has faded into nothingness, so religion brings you a certain psychological comfort in knowing that there's such a thing as a soul and that, depending on a man's life, it gets the treatment it deserves. As the music dies, Gantry picks up where they left off and continues the hymn. He has an affair with female evangelist Sharon Falconer, which ends with her death in a flaming tabernacle. The publication day of Elmer Gantry found him wandering through Europe with Ramon Guthrie; from Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, he commented in the most innocent tones on the stir he had caused: The violent Kansas City blokes have been asinine. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window). Like everything else in the Lone Star State, our dreams were big from the start. Reverend Jacob Trosper is the dean and chief executive of Mizpah Theological Seminary. He confesses his love for her and they begin an affair, peppering their lovemaking with religious imagery. He was saturated with itthe sermons, hymns, Bible stories, funerals, weddings, Sunday schools. Lewis seems determined to avoid religious discrimination: all sects appear in equally bad light. In Zenith, Elmer meets Bishop Toomis, a prominent figure in the Methodist Church. T. J. Rigg is a famous criminal lawyer and a trustee of Wellspring Methodist Church in Zenith. Elmer is so infatuated with Sharon that he gives up smoking and drinking for her. Mark Schorer, then of the University of California, Berkeley, notes: "The forces of social good and enlightenment as presented in Elmer Gantry are not strong enough to offer any real resistance to the forces of social evil and banality." He goes to live with his niece and dies within two years. 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. He seeks out Shallard, who has largely given up his faith but has been persuaded by a Methodist pastor to continue in the ministry and is now at a church in Zenith. He retains his theological navet, however, and it is clear that his modernism is not sufficient. On publication in 1927, Elmer Gantry created a public furor. The film is basically how Hollywood, in the late 1950s, viewed tent religion in the early part of the twentieth century. 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. Thus equipped, Elmer advances to conquer the world. In the following essay excerpt, Dooley calls Elmer Gantry a picaresque novel that begins as a satire of revivalism.. To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories. The attack on the hypocrisy of Protestant ministers continues throughout the novel. Gaining and keeping followers is the key to the success of any religion, and religious leaders must recognize this and figuratively, though sometimes literally, sell the religion. For the most part, he does not create complex human portraits but caricatures. These help her to put on a dramatic show that wins many converts. But unlike Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantrys rise is depicted negatively. There Despite his doubts, and following Zechlins advice, Shallard decides to remain in the church. Schorer discusses Lewiss research for the novel, including the clergyman he met in Kansas City. His decision to enter the ministry is dishonest and contrary to his own nature, and it costs him the respect and friendship of his agnostic college roommate, Jim Lefferts. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. The inspiration for Falconer, Aimee Semple McPherson, on the other hand, was thought of as a celebrity, and many felt her intentions were dubious. 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. In fact, the question of whether Elmer is a human being or an ogre in the novel is a relevant one. Napap would bring about nationwide censorship of novels, plays, paintings, and movies. He is a worldly man and gives Elmer some shrewd advice about how to build up the church. One Summer: America, 1927 As with any service, the revivals in Elmer Gantry would not be put on if the pastors and congregations of these areas did not have a demand for them. This is indeed what happened to Dr. Bruno Zechlin, one of the faculty at Mizpah, who lost his fundamentalist faith even before he received his theological doctorate. He ends up as minister of a large church in a West Virginia mining town. Kraus used []. 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. What are his leading characteristics? Like a priestess she takes him to the chapel, a shrine with hangings, a crucifix, statues of the Virgin, and heathen idols, including a naked Venus. Sharon Falconer is a charismatic evangelist who travels around the country holding spectacular revival meetings. Elmers next position is at a church in Monarch. You could even argue that Gantry is performing a kind of public service, meeting a need with maximum opportunism but without malice. Elmer thinks he is fat and pompous, but respects him nonetheless. After this catastrophe, he briefly acts as a "New Thought" evangelist, and eventually becomes a Methodist minister. Elmer Gantry Script He fell in love with Sharon when he first met her, and is devoted to her. After Elmer dumps her for Hettie, Lulu loses interest in life. Elmer starts to detest her when he finds out that she is cold, sexually. Concerning about some preachers exact wealth and power from their congregration . They hypnotize themselves, says Jim Lefferts to Elmer, trying to persuade him not to go along with it. He uses the church to further his own ambitions for power and fame. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb As Elmers career begins its ascent, we learn something more of the images which fill his mind: For all his slang, his cursing, his mauled plurals and singulars, Elmer had been compelled in college to read certain books, to hear certain lectures, all filled with flushed, florid polysyllables, with juicy sentiments about God, sunsets, the moral improvement inherent in a daily view of mountain scenery, angels, fishing for souls, fishing for fish, ideals, patriotism, democracy . Already a member? Elmer Gantry is a fast-talking, hard-drinking traveling salesman who always has a risqu story and a hip flask to entertain cronies and customers alike. Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. The Baptist influences to which Elmer is subjected in his youth, particularly at Terwillinger College and Mizpah Theological Seminary, are handled very roughly. Nevertheless, it is soon apparent that he has gone too far; to him, Christianity is not only untrue, but inconceivable. Dinner at the Governors Ball with Eddie Fisher. 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? He relents and the dark fabric of the preachers suit is draped over a body that is full of blind, yet healthy and normal impulses. One cleric suggested that Lewis should be imprisoned for five years, and there were also threats of physical violence against the author. Later judgments have also been mixed. Encyclopedia.com. Though it makes its position on for-profit religious functions clear from the very beginning of the film, it attempts its critique in a fair manner. He falls for her on sight, and follows her to Lincoln, Nebraska, for her next revival meeting. A typical picaresque narrative chronicles the exploits of a rogue, an immoral but not criminal character who lives by his wits. 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. ", Movie Lacks Something, But a Stunning Lead Performance Isn't It. British guitarist and vocalist. Sharon is a woman of many selves: she is imperious and efficient, but also vulnerable. He becomes so successful that he becomes indispensable to Sister Sharon's roadshow. WebElmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) is a slick traveling salesman who is a boozer and a dog hound. As in Babbitt and Arrowsmith, we are made aware that there are sinister forces combining to strike at the very foundations of American liberties. Jim observes his defeat from his bed, laid ill with a bug no doubt divinely-sent. 2019Encyclopedia.com | All rights reserved. To his understanding of Lewiss art, Jones seems to add firsthand knowledge about wartime religious revivals. The Reverend McGarry tells Frank simply to accept the church with all its imperfectionswith its Gantrysand turn to giving hope and comfort to the piteous human beings who come to the church for help. Harry Zenz does not believe a word of what he is taught at the seminary. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Copyright 2022 The University of Alabama After several failed efforts to hear God calling him to the ministry, Gantry shares a bottle of whiskey with Jim and emerges with the feeling of having received the call. He is immediately taken Lulu becomes devoted to Elmer but he gets bored with her. Elmer, after all, is not an idealist; though he ventures forth, he does not do so in the name of chivalry; and, finally, he does not practice the transmuting powers of fancy. The Lancastic! Elmer despises him. He becomes one of the first clergymen in the country to have his services broadcast by radio, and in 1924, he travels to Europe with Cleo. The second is the date of The sociological factor that works against Elmer is the entire small-town Protestant environment in which he was raised. But for my money it is Jean Simmonds, surely robbed of her own Oscar here, who has the most impressive part. He is a born salesman well versed with the bible. 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. Amplifying and connecting marginalized voices, Dance as deep listening: Weave by Rosy Simas Danse comes to the Ordway, Ritual and revelation: Black Ensemble Players reimagine Shakespeare, North Minneapolis takes back food systems, land through urban agriculture, Ha Tien Market still finds home along the Green Line, despite problems, St. Pauls school resource officer policies still leave district room for improvement, Hiawatha Collegiate High School goes beyond beating the odds for students of color, [COMMUNITY VOICES] Non-criminal technical violations are increasing Minnesotas prison population, Community Voices: [PHOTOS] Minneapolis comes out strong for Families Belong Together nationwide march, IGGERS DIGEST | Katar River: flavors and aromas of Ethiopia. Have faith! He has been educated by Roger Williams, Adoniram Judson, Luther, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, George Washington, Lincoln, Robert Ingersoll, William James, and Frasers Golden Bough. He is known in his church for his piety, but in fact he is an atheist. Sharon is supposed to be a firebrand, based on evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, part Houdini, part Teddy Roosevelt, who preached a dramatic God. What of Jesuss teachings? pat hingle elevator accident Gantrys beliefs are left ambiguous, as are his motives for evangelizing. . Elmer Gantry (1960) - Turner Classic Movies For all his wisdom, he speaks in platitudes, although Lewis does give him one searing moment of insight. He begins a course of home study, in a brief episode which must play ironically against Benjamin Franklins self-education. | The bell-boy is scarcely out of the room when Elmer grabs Cleo. 3945; originally published in New York Herald Tribune Books, March 13, 1927. He is so good that it is hard to tell the difference whether he's sincere or lying. WebElmer Gantry has a great plot. Later, Lewis will show Elmer no mercy, but at this stage his target is not so much the soon-to-be preacher but the social and psychological context in which he is formed. The merit of this argument is undermined because it is given by Babbitt, not out of caring for the citizens of Zenith, but rather because he stands to gain the most financially from the revival. Elmer Gantry may have a rather unsavoury past but the one thing he can do better than anyone is sell himself, pots, pans, anything. It is success that proves faith in this religion, not the other way round. At times he is almost satanic, a compendium of all the vices; they are too many and too flagrant for him to be real. Traveling in the Southwest, he is beaten and blinded. Elmer Gantry - Rotten Tomatoes And yet Lewiss attitude to his character is a little more complex than this long list of his faults might suggest. Elmer forces him to resign by questioning his religious beliefs, after which Shallard gets a job with the Charity Organization Society. Some while later Shallard goes on a lecture tour to speak against fundamentalism. Pengilly is an old Methodist pastor who is something of a saintly figure. Elmer Gantry: Sin. It looks like we don't have any synopsis for this title yet. Elmer Gantry (1960) - Plot Summary - IMDb