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. In order to conquer her, he must use his extensive repertoire of biblical quips, quotes and bawdy antidotes. Although most entertaining when Gantry is actually preaching (mainly in the opening half of the film), the intelligent script moves on from it's basic premise (that Gantry is a charlatan) to explore wider questions of the nature of humanity and society. Firearm Discussion and Resources from AR-15, AK-47, Handguns and more! Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/film-review-burt-lancaster-s-oscar-winning-elmer-gantry-trylon-theater-monday-and-tu/). Eddie Fislinger is a student at Terwillinger College and the president of the Y.M.C.A. Gantry is portrayed as a smooth talking but frustrated salesman, struggling to make a living. AKA: Elmer Gantry, le charlatan. Over the next few years, he is appointed to larger and larger parishes, eventually to a church in Zenith. In Newark, New Jersey, Alvin Shipwreck Kelly sat atop a flagpole for twelve days, and in Chicago, the gangster Al Capone was tightening his grip on bootlegging. A serious obstacle to her goal is Gantry, but more so is the cautionary and caustic pen of Jim Lefferts (Arthur Kennedy), a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who questions the personal and financial motives of her entourage. Within the sphere of a traveling troupe of bible beating, evangelicals on a religious crusade, the author's hero, one Elmer Gantry (supurbly played by Oscar wining Burt Lancaster) is as energetic as his tales. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. He first worked with William L. "Big Bill" Stidger, pastor of the Linwood Boulevard Methodist Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Missouri. On publication, Elmer Gantry had a sensational reception. Overhead traveling cranes are used in industrial buildings to lift and transport heavy jobs, machines, and so on, from one place to another. He is so good that it is hard to 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. His ambition knows no bounds. The trouble is, he needed a good reason for his broad and over-the-top acting. Satire ridicules its subject, with the intention of arousing contempt or scorn in the reader. 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. A typical picaresque narrative chronicles the exploits of a rogue, an immoral but not criminal character who lives by his wits. Traveling in the Southwest, he is beaten and blinded. Excerpt from Babbitt Gantrys mother is a strict fundamentalist, so Gantry spent much of his childhood in church, where he learned the dour lifestyle of a Christian. 99107. Fascinating - 1960's "Elmer Gantry," based on the Sinclair Lewis novel, could be made today with nothing changed and be as powerful - maybe more powerful - than it was in 1960. In fact, the film's theatricality can almost be seen as a strength, for it's constructed like a well-written play. 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. After exposing the professors secret, Gantry receives an anonymous gift of thirty dimes, which he uses to buy photographs of strippers. He thinks they might, for all he knows, be true, and that is enough for him. Your email address will not be published. It looks like we don't have any synopsis for this title yet. Elmer is forced to agree, but promises himself he will find a way out of the engagement. The result is as discouraging, as horrifying, as it would have been if Huck had been converted by Miss Watsons Bible stories. Then his past comes back to haunt him in the form of Lulu Bains (Shirley Jones) who is now a prostitute. 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. Many of the people attending the revivals would then be working-class individuals. (205) 348-6010 Here she kneels. Hettie Dowler becomes Elmers secretary at Zenith when Elmer is already famous. Elmer Gantry was drunk, the novel opens, and Lancaster is terrific as the boozing, womanizing traveling salesman.Gantry is a believer, of a sort. He is no Harry Zenz or Bruno Zechlin, who have both thought deeply about theology and have emerged as atheists. West, Rebecca, Review of Elmer Gantry, in Sinclair Lewis: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Mark Schorer, Prentice-Hall, 1962, pp. Lancaster's vitality as a sinful preacher lights up the screen "Love is the morning and the evening star! How long would a drunkard listen to the counsel of one who had never been inside a saloon? This short scene is written from Elmers point of view. Or maybe as something more. But while Elmers career ascends, that of the honest Frank Shallard, who goes to the seminary with Elmer, descends to the point where Frank is beaten up by members of the Ku Klux Klan for preaching what he believes to be the truth. Elmer is, obviously enough, an example of the latter. In the novel, when Elmer takes up his first appointment in a small-town Methodist church, one of the first questions the fundamentalist trustees asks him is, Do any monkeying with this higher criticism? Against the tide of modernist thought that included science and secularism, fundamentalists insisted on the truth of their core doctrines, including the virgin birth, the physical resurrection of Jesus, the atonement, the infallibility of the Scriptures, and the second coming of Christ. WebBy John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with During the US Army invasion of Morocco and Algeria in 1943, enroute to the invasion of Italy, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), as the CIA was called then, came up with the donkey turd bomb for destroying the enemy.Since 2014, the CIA has come up with the modern equivalent its called the Ukrainian bomb. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Schorer discusses Lewiss research for the novel, including the clergyman he met in Kansas City. There are several other minor characters who are introduced with no apparent purpose other than to serve as victims of the authors anti-religious inclination. However, Lewis does not seem to have had such an intention at first; once again, half the novel is concerned with one theme and half with a related but different one. It also underscores what Lewis saw as one of the greatest dangers in American societythe tendency toward excess not only in religion but also in production, consumption, patriotism, and the proliferation of institutions . The two make a successful onstage pair, and their chemistry extends to romance. "Elmer Gantry", directed by Richard Brooks, is one of his best. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). . Shortly Frank meets more of real life than he is prepared for. After several years as a travelling salesman of farm equipment, he becomes manager for Sharon Falconer, an itinerant evangelist. Elmers next position is at a church in Monarch. The attendants give her their money, she leaves after a short period of time, and then the attendants are no better off and short on money. 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." Elmer Gantry and Sister Sharon Falconer, the two main religious leaders of the film, are portrayed as morally dubious though Gantry has a small redemption and Falconer clearly truly believes in her cause. Thus, Schorer concludes, there is no pressure upon Elmer to be forced into a position of new self-awareness. With Jim (who is more skeptical and quick-witted than Gantry) home sick in bed, Gantry attends the meeting with his mother and is converted. No! 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. Pretending to be outraged, Elmer resigns his position. Floyd Naylor is a large and rather stupid farmer in Schoenheim who is in love with Lulu Bains, whom he eventually marries. 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 . There have been five adaptations of the novel. He begins a course of home study, in a brief episode which must play ironically against Benjamin Franklins self-education. Despite his doubts, and following Zechlins advice, Shallard decides to remain in the church. When Gantry is framed as a philanderer, both Falconer and Gantry endure the wrath of an angry public in Zenith, but are quickly restored to their pedestals upon a retraction. WebHappy Birthday # 75..Barbara Lynn Herzstein, better known as Barbara Hershey, An Actress. WebLove is the voice of music. Binch is a dreadful character who leers at Sharon and has an excessive interest in church fundraising. Elmer Gantry is a picaresque novel. WebThere is a bit of a rough edit in the middle, because the scene is actually over 8 minutes long, and I needed to get it down to under 5 minutes. He looks stern and Elmer is afraid of him. She is also a pious churchgoer who has always wanted Elmer to become a preacher. Given, too, that the film's production was 1960, we can say that "Elmer Gantry" does not reflect the current, 21st century, state of religious fundamentalism in America. He is immediately taken with Sister Sharon Falconer, a lay preacher whose hellfire-and-damnation revivalism has attracted quite a following. Since he is ordinarily only a caricature, we cannot consider him a believeable human being; and when Lewis tells us that he has a conscience, we refuse to believe it. Paperback June 3, 2014. 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! 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 ).. One cleric suggested that Lewis should be imprisoned for five years, and there were also threats of physical violence against the author. As the music dies, Gantry picks up where they left off and continues the hymn. | In 1926, Lewis refused the Pulitzer Prize for Arrowsmith, because he believed it would compromise his artistic independence. The impact of religion on Elmer Gantry symbolizes what it has done to the American spirit. Published in 1922 Indeed, why doesnt he? The portrayal of revivals as a necessary service with a precarious balance between helping and hurting both the revivals leaders and attendants is masterful. We're confident we succeeded and have no doubt you'll agree. It's sophisticated script, complex characters, and wonderful acting opened a whole new world for me. He ends up as minister of a large church in a West Virginia mining town. Some while later Shallard goes on a lecture tour to speak against fundamentalism. Log in here. One admirable character, Frank Shallard, makes an essentially quixotic response to Elmer and his deceits. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. | The ships captain who in the storm took counsel with the orphaned but righteous child of missionaries in Zomballa. Using his sales techniques, especially on one of Sister Sharon's underlings, the nave Sister Rachel, Elmer is able infiltrate her entourage. In Zenith, Elmer meets Bishop Toomis, a prominent figure in the Methodist Church. The fledgling work even had legs, if short ones. He has an affair with his secretary, who then tries to blackmail him, and only escapes ruin because he has a clever lawyer. A brooding look at revivalist religion in which the over-the-top acting of Burt Lancaster steals the show . But they could be healed constantly, and of the same disease.. They are encouraged by Dr. Zechlin, who tells him that no reasonable person can be a believing Christian; nevertheless, he ought to stay in the church to liberalize it from withinin effect, to destroy it. Edward Shillito, "Elmer Gantry and the Church in America", This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 16:54. How would you describe his demeanor? At Mizpah Theological Seminary, Elmer and his fellow students all smoke in their dormitory, even though smoking is practically forbidden. Mrs. Gantry is Elmers mother. I'm talkin' about divine love - not carnal love. But for my money it is Jean Simmonds, surely robbed of her own Oscar here, who has the most impressive part. Traditionalists, therefore, rejected the new approach of liberal theology. 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. From the exceptionally talented pen of noted author Sinclair Lewis comes this entertaining story of a fast-talking, yarn-spinning vacuum salesman with the natural gift of persuasion. Before long, he marries Cleo Benham, the choir director, but finds her an unenthusiastic lover. It is the hour! Excellent recounting based on the controversial Sinclair Lewis novel that got three Academy Awards . 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. WebElmer Gantry. A typical picaresque narrative chronicles the exploits of a rogue, an immoral but not criminal character who lives by his wits. Elmer works diligently and is rewarded at the Methodists Annual Conference by being sent to a bigger church, at Rudd Center. After various forays into evangelism, he becomes a successful Methodist minister despite his hypocrisy and serial sexual indiscretions.[1]. Reverend Andrew Pengilly is the old pastor of the Catawba Methodist Church. Afterward, he must resign himself to helplessness for the rest of his life. At the novels beginning, Gantry is captain of the football team at the rowdy campus at Terwillinger College, a Baptist school. The footballer wins by flattering Elmer, insulting Elmers courage, and challenging Elmer to a fight over The Lord. If there are three dates, the first date is the date of the original Her main supporter is worldly William Morgan (Dean Jagger) who believes in Falconer, and sees Gantry and Lefferts for the opportunistic impediments they are. The supporting staff performed equally well. And yet Lewiss attitude to his character is a little more complex than this long list of his faults might suggest. At his Lively Sunday Evenings, Elmer gets up to many publicity-generating stunts. He wears fine clothes, yet he rides the railways like a vagabond. Playing the title character, Lancaster won his first and only Oscar, for Best Actor. In the following essay excerpt, Dooley calls Elmer Gantry a picaresque novel that begins as a satire of revivalism.. WebBethel Merriday, by Sinclair Lewis, free ebook. Elmer borrows a hundred dollars from Shallard, who is now a minister and is married with three children. He is a born salesman well versed with the bible. The novel is absorbing, and I should like to say a few words about it. He befriends local reporters in hopes of getting his name in the papers, and eventually he leads a raid on Zeniths red-light district. Elmer Gantry is a nuanced look at the world of evangelists and revivals. He goes to live with his niece and dies within two years. 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. Still, Falconer dies for her beliefs and is shown to fervently believe in God; she clearly wants to save people. Salesman Elmer Gantry, salesman teams up with evangelist Sister Sharon Falconer to sell religion to 1920s America. WebElmer Gantry; Keith Phares, Sharon Falconer; Jennifer Rivera. 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. Meanwhile, Babe Ruth was closing in on the home run record. Metacritic Reviews. It tells the story of a hypocritical, corrupt, but very successful preacher named Elmer Gantry. In "Elmer Gantry," Burt Lancaster gives one of the all-time great screen performances. Drama. Welcome to the blog of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. In this scene at the end of the 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. In his preparation for the ministry, it is ironic that Elmer plagiarizes his first (and most frequently useful) sermon from the social reformer Robert G. Ingersoll: Love is the only bow on lifes dark cloud. Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles on twentieth century literature. 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. He is not a deep thinker and does not really care whether the Baptist doctrines he preaches are true or false. The film isn't just about rural religion in the 1920s, or how media is exploited, or how sometimes clever hucksters can outwit themselves. Bains and Naylor confront Elmer at the Seminary and tell him he must marry Lulu. Elmers lawyer outwits Hetties lawyer, and she is forced to withdraw the charges she made against him and state that she was part of a plot by the liquor interests to ensnare him. A more elaborate kind of fantasy arises out of Lewiss belief that formal religion is based on the self-interest of its leaders. Elmer escapes by knocking other people out of the way, but Sharon is burned to death. Therefore, its best to use Encyclopedia.com citations as a starting point before checking the style against your school or publications requirements and the most-recent information available at these sites: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html. The debate between fundamentalists and liberals is conducted amongst the students at Mizpah. You're all sinners. With a long line of charismatic cinematic rogues to his credit, Burt Lancaster pulls off a barnstorming performance as Elmer Gantry, the salesman turned opportunistic evangelist whose fast-talking pitch scarcely slackens, off-stage or on. On his first visit in 1889, he held campaigns in cities from Boston to San Francisco. Gantry's entire repertoire is performed with encyclopedic thoroughness and accuracy. Jim is the college freethinker and the only person who has any influence on Elmer. 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. Infuriating and erratic, but brilliantly creative, the Canadian-born British artist and writer Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) was an always, Elman, Ziggy (originally, Finkelman, Harry), Elman, Mischa (actually, Mikhail Saulovich), Elmira Business Institute: Narrative Description, https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/elmer-gantry, Lewis, Sinclair (7 February 1885 - 10 January 1951). | He is one haunted by his checkered past and his immorality. WebIn the 1920s, Elmer Gantry entertains a group of fellow salesmen in a speakeasy with his ribald jokes and easy charm. Box sets galore! Schorer also says that, while researching the book, Lewis attended two or three church services every Sunday while in Kansas City, and that: "He took advantage of every possible tangential experience in the religious community." In it he established ties with Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. In fact, the film could be seen as prescient, as both religious revivalism, and celebrity-scandal driven journalism (another of its subjects), have arguably become more prevalent since it was made. What has educated Elmer (a few books, oratory, sermons, tracts, hymns, and a smattering of a college education) must be ridiculed in order to purge it from the land. He retains his theological navet, however, and it is clear that his modernism is not sufficient. Gantry's noisy methods seem to work, even if they draw derision from the religious establishment and attacks from the cynical press. In 1903, Lewis went to Yale University, where he served as editor of the Yale Literary Magazine. The inspiration for Falconer, Aimee Semple McPherson, on the other hand, was thought of as a celebrity, and many felt her intentions were dubious. 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. Evangelist Billy Sunday called Lewis "Satan's cohort". Elmer loathes him but Frank Shallard regards him as a friend. While there are multiple factors for this, a significant part of this increase is due to the incarceration of formerly released individuals [], On the afternoon of Saturday, June 30, Minneapolis was one of 600 cities and towns across the country to come alive with thousands of people vigorously and collectively denouncing the U.S. governments federal immigration policies as part of the Families Belong Together nationwide march. He enters the ministry because he cannot think of anything else to do in life. He is influenced by the atheistic Dr. Zechlin who lends him theological works by liberals and skeptics. The select mini requires bed leveling and will eventually need you to do a gantry support modification as it is only supported on one side. For Sheldon Norman Grebstein, writing in 1962, the novel has snap, flavor, a strong narrative line, a good deal of authenticity But it is distorted, even too much for satire; it lacks conflict and contrast. In a generally favorable assessment, James Lundquist, in Sinclair Lewis, brings attention to Lewiss mastery of irony, but he also comments on a weakness in the plot, arguing that the final crisis Elmer faces is unconvincing in its details. Elmer would probably not be able to answer this question. But we sure view it differently 80 years after the book and 55 years after the movie debuted. Anative of the midwestern United States, Sinclair Lewis (18851951) chronicled through novels, THE LITERARY WORK Awards Every one knew of some case in which each of the others had stolen, or was said to have tried to steal, some parishioner, to have corrupted his faith and appropriated his contributions. 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. On May 25, 2016, St. Paul School Resource Officer Bill Kraus forcibly arrested then 19-year-old Darion Bell outside of St. Paul Central High School. His specialty is in denouncing vice, and in Zenith he even leads a police raid on the local dens of iniquity. Like Matthew Arnold, whose thinking Lewis often paralleled, Lewis maintained that Hebraism has too much prevailed over Hellenism and that what is needed is more sweetness and light (Elmer, with his black hair and black eyes, is, of course, the enemy of light). Others praised its accurate reporting and its denunciation of hypocrisy, comparing Lewis to great satirists such as Voltaire and Swift. He is a worldly man and gives Elmer some shrewd advice about how to build up the church. Meanwhile, Hettie turns out to be a married woman who, with her husband, tries to blackmail Elmer. When Elmer joins evangelist Sharon Falconer, he supplies poetry for her sermons, using Ella Wheeler Wilcox, James Whitcomb Riley, and Thomas Moore, with philosophy from Ralph Waldo Trine. In many ways, of course, Elmer is the worst of them all. Elmer pulls the burning jacket off her, and beats out the flames. The legal profession does not suit the unethical Gantry. Concerning about some preachers exact wealth and power from their congregration . It's easy to miss the Katar River restaurant, hidden away in a little industrial strip behind the Lake & Hiawatha shopping center in south Minneapolis. Binch is also a snob who has contempt for other preachers. And if I could still only be sure about the virgin birth! But he did not achieve the heights of success he had enjoyed during the 1920s. After two years as a salesman, Elmer meets Eddie Fislinger at his church in Kansas, and he decides he wants to be a preacher again. When he finally got the green light, it was United Artists that agreed to distribute the film. 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). The film is basically how Hollywood, in the late 1950s, viewed tent religion in the early part of the twentieth century. After the fire and Sharons death, Elmer is conscience-stricken. , Sinclair Lewis: An American Life, McGraw Hill, 1961, pp. Good drama that had the potential to be one of the greats. 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. Sharons real name is Katie Jonas; she picked out the name Sharon Falconer when she was working as a stenographer. On the trip to his new church, he gets drunk and carouses with women; he is discovered and is dismissed from the seminary. One attendant of the revivals even describes himself as only being a good Christian when a revival is in town, and then going back to his old ways once it is gone. Although it's difficult to know if Gantry's spiritual motivation is genuine or merely a ploy, throughout the film, one is kept guessing. Lundquist, James, Sinclair Lewis, Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1973, pp. Reviewers were divided on the merits of the novel. He becomes so successful that he becomes indispensable to Sister Sharon's roadshow. 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. She teaches classes in Concentration, Prosperity, Love, Metaphysics and Oriental Mysticism, and invites Elmer to join her. That night he has doubts, but he is persuaded to speak the following night at the Y.M.C.A. D. J. Dooley remarks that to Lewis Christianity is not only untrue, but inconceivable. Dooley feels that Elmer Gantry is flawed because it is neither a realistic portrayal of the state of religion in America nor a caricature whose manifest unfairness can be forgiven because of the wit and humor which have gone into it. True, unless, taking our cue from Sharon Falconer and the multitude of fraudulent evangelistic minor characters in the book, we begin to see Elmer Gantry as Lewiss triumphant depiction of a land of demons and grotesques of all sizes and shapes, created from the extremes of human impulse and incapable of self-awareness because they are already beyond it, Elmer included. Nothing reveals Lewiss isolation from an overview of life more clearly than the way he dismisses religion. Driven by ambition to become a bishop, he is hugely successful, and is given bigger and bigger churches. This tended to undermine the uniqueness of Christianity and the literal interpretation of the Bible. because Joness Lulu is a silly, air-spun girl.
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