Sometimes a movie star just puts a film on his back. That’s Burt Lancaster as con man Elmer Gantry, an inveterate drunk, gambler, and womanizer who just so happens to do an electric impersonation of a fire-and-brimstone preacher.
Gantry convinces Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) to let him preach at her revivalist roadshow. While Gantry may fool everyone else into thinking he’s a man of God, Sharon knows Gantry’s a charlatan—but she also knows he gets butts in the pews. In effect, Sharon sells her soul to Gantry, justifying it by telling him “God sent you to me as his instrument.” She also falls into his bed.
The revival is invited to the big city of Zenith and it’s a rollicking success. The good times come to an end, though, when Lulu Bains (Shirley Jones), a prostitute and ex-lover of Gantry’s, plays the ol’ badger game on him1, destroying his credibility and, through him, the revival.
But after Gantry beats up Lulu’s pimp, Lulu recants her story and Sharon is back in the people’s good graces. She opens a tabernacle and at her first service she faith-heals a man of his deafness, declaring “punish us for our sins but reward us for our faith!” Moments later, a fire erupts and Sharon is burned alive. Consider her dragged down to the fiery depths of hell for her deal with the devil.
Rating: 10/10. I don’t know the first thing about theosophy, philosophy, psychology, ideology, or any other -ology, but I know Elmer Gantry’s a ten.
Cast and Crew
So, fun fact: “Burt Lancaster” is the answer to the question “why are we watching all of these Best Actor films?” The genesis for this newsletter came after watching Elmer Gantry and being awed by Burt’s performance.2 So far, we’ve covered him in From Here to Eternity and Separate Tables, but this film right here is his masterpiece. And don’t worry, we’ll see him again soon.
Jean Simmons has been in this column before, being viciously underutilized as “Generic Love Interest” in The Robe. Her role here as Sharon—charismatic, complex, somewhere between disgraced and redeemed—is the beating heart of Elmer Gantry. But Simmons isn’t a one-trick pony: she also played Ophelia opposite Laurence Olivier in 1948’s Hamlet, a film that won Best Picture. Some of her other roles were as Sister Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls (1955) and as Spartacus’ wife in Spartacus (1960).
Shirley Jones played a vengeful prostitute in Elmer Gantry, and it was a real departure for her. She was best-known as the female lead in a bunch of pleasant musicals, including Oklahoma! (1955), Carousel (1956), and, later, The Music Man (1962). She also played Shirley Partridge, the mother on “The Partridge Family” (1970-1974). The premise of that show was “family that sings,” and one of Jones’ co-stars was David Cassidy, Jones’ real-life stepson.3
In Elmer Gantry, Gantry compares the work of reporter Jim Lefferts (Arthur Kennedy) to that of Sinclair Lewis:
Now, Jim is brilliant and witty. Uses words like a stiletto. He learned from Mencken, Ingersoll, Sinclair Lewis, [and] other atheists.
This is a bit of a laugh line, since Sinclair Lewis authored the novel “Elmer Gantry.” Lewis was the first American Nobel Laureate in Literature4 and wrote many works you need to know. One such work is “Babbitt,” about a real-estate broker in the fictional midwestern city of Zenith who discovers emptiness at the heart of both the American dream and non-conformity.5 Another is “Main Street,” a novel skewering the small-town Minnesota mentality.
In 2016, the Lewis novel “It Can’t Happen Here” had a big uptick in sales. That one is a tale about a fascist elected president of the United States, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what could have possibly happened in 2016 to make that work feel relevant.
The Trivia
This film is about the revival movement, so let’s talk about some major figures of revivalism, evangelicalism, and charismatic Christianity.
Though Sinclair Lewis said Gantry wasn’t based on any real-life preacher, he certainly shares similarities with baseball-player-turned-preacher Billy Sunday. Though there were dynamic evangelists before Sunday, Sunday’s embrace of advertising and radio to get his message out led to him having a bigger platform than his forebears or contemporaries. He was pro-temperance, anti-evolution, and hated both Lewis and “Elmer Gantry.”
But North Carolina Southern Baptist evangelist Billy Graham was like Billy Sunday, only seven days a week. Wanna see him with three presidents?
I grabbed that picture from a New York Post article on Graham’s pernicious influence on the White House. But his influence wasn’t just in the White House; it was everywhere. Graham is said to have preached to more people than anyone in history, and if you see a trivia question that boils down to “evangelist?,” he’s the answer. Burt Lancaster intended Elmer Gantry to be a broadside against Graham, but it certainly didn’t slow him down, and when he died in 2018, he lay in honor in the Capitol rotunda.6
There were a number of other noteworthy evangelists that were approximately contemporaneous with Graham:
Oral Roberts taught the prosperity gospel—that worship will make you rich—and founded Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa, OK.
Jerry Falwell was known for the Moral Majority, a powerful right-wing political machine in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He also founded Liberty University7 in Lynchburg, VA.
Pat Robertson founded the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and hosted “The 700 Club.” He ran for president in 19888, losing the primary to George H. W. Bush.9
And now, the evangelists known mostly for scandal:
James Bakker hosted “The PTL Club” with his then-wife Tammy Faye and also developed Heritage USA, a Christian theme park. He became disgraced due to a rape-and-cover-up scandal. A movie about Faye and Bakker starring Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield called The Eyes of Tammy Faye came out in 2021. I caught it on a plane; it was pretty good.
Louisianan Jimmy Swaggart10 was one of the guys calling for Bakker’s head during Bakker’s scandal, but when his own scandal (of the “soliciting prostitutes” varietal) broke, he went on TV and tearfully confessed that he had sinned.
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Jerry Falwell Jr., the son of Jerry Falwell, lost the presidency of Liberty University because of (yeah, we get it) a sex scandal.
But even today we’ve got famous evangelists preaching to big crowds. Joel Osteen runs Lakewood Church in Texas, and he’s got books helping you “Become a Better You” by living “Your Best Life Now.”
Odds and Ends
Richard Brooks, who we last saw behind the camera in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed this film…André Previn’s perfectly imposing score netted him an Oscar nomination, right on the heels of his wins for Gigi (1958) and Porgy and Bess (1959)…here’s Mahalia Jackson singing “I’m On My Way,” a hymn that refrains throughout the film (though if the Carter family is more your vibe, they recorded it too)…Gideons International gets their name from a Biblical judge; that organization puts Bibles in hotel rooms…a tabernacle originally was the portable dwelling the Israelites used during the Exodus; it gets its name from the Latin for “tent”…a blind tiger is an illegal bar…Sharon’s character shares many similarities to Canadian radio evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.
“Playing the badger game” is getting someone into a compromising situation to extort money from them. It’s named for the blood sport activity of badger-baiting.
Well, it was from both Elmer Gantry and another Burt Lancaster film, Judgment at Nuremberg. That one has a Burt monologue I’m obsessed with and I’m stoked we’re gonna watch it again soon enough (though it’s not even Burt who’s nominated).
“The Partridge Family” also starred Susan Dey and Danny Bonaduce as other singin’ children. Bonaduce’s name is “you-had-to-be-there” pop culture ephemera, but Dey had other major roles, including on “L. A. Law.”
Though he declined the Pulitzer for his novel “Arrowhead,” giving one of my all-time favorite quotes: “All prizes, like all titles, are dangerous. The seekers for prizes tend to labor not for inherent excellences but for alien rewards; they tend to write […] timorously to avoid writing that […] tickles the prejudices of a haphazard committee.”
The character George Babbitt is in Elmer Gantry as part of a group that gets Gantry’s revival to come to Zenith. “Dodsworth,” another Lewis work, also takes place in Zenith. Consider all of this part of the Sinclair Lewis Extended Universe (SLEU).
There’s a slight difference between lying in state and lying in honor. Lying in state is for incumbent and past government officials, while lying in honor is for everyone else.
Originally called Lynchburg Baptist College.
Now, I read Richard Ben Cramer’s “What It Takes,” a 1,000 page book about the 1988 election, and he barely mentions Robertson. I now know every dang thing about Gary Hart and Bob Dole and Michael Dukakis and Dick Gephardt but basically don’t know anything about Pat Robertson or Jesse Jackson.
Pat Robertson didn’t have the support of the Moral Majority in that election; perhaps this shows the difference between Falwell’s fundamentalist strain of Christianity and Robertson’s charismatic strain.
Swaggart is the cousin of rockabilly star Jerry Lee Lewis (who had his own scandals) and country star Mickey Gilley.