Richard Brooks spent years trying to bring ELMER GANTRY to the screen. When he finally got the green light, it was United Artists that agreed to distribute the film. And fortunately for us, it gives BURT LANCASTER the kind of role that would rightly win him an Academy Award as Best Actor in 1960.
He gives the role all the energy and charisma it requires and then some. His chemistry with JEAN SIMMONS, as an Evangelist who at first resists his overtures to join her group, is evident from their first encounter. ARTHUR KENNEDY does a fine job as a cynical journalist who is largely a bystander to the proceedings and DEAN JAGGER is excellent as a fellow Evangelist who has his own doubts about Gantry. Singer PATTI PAGE does nicely in a straight dramatic role.
It's easy to see why Hollywood was afraid of the Sinclair Lewis story. It certainly doesn't paint organized religion in a very positive light and, in fact, deals with the underbelly of revivalism. The story of a an unholy preacher who turned revivalism into a circus side show is so cynical, it makes anything that someone like Billy Wilder ever wrote look like child's play by comparison.
SHIRLEY JONES has the role of the prostitute who is Gantry's undoing when she pulls the con game on him of photographing him offering her money. His Achilles Heel is women and she knew it. A newspaper gets hold of the photos and his goose is cooked.
ARTHUR KENNEDY has the story's best line: "The mobs don't like their Gods to be human." I bought everything but the climactic "fire and damnation" ending with JEAN SIMMONS wandering around like a lost soul amid the flames. It seemed totally out of character for her to suddenly become so unrealistic about what was happening.
Other than that, a great movie. BURT LANCASTER never had a more fitting role.
He gives the role all the energy and charisma it requires and then some. His chemistry with JEAN SIMMONS, as an Evangelist who at first resists his overtures to join her group, is evident from their first encounter. ARTHUR KENNEDY does a fine job as a cynical journalist who is largely a bystander to the proceedings and DEAN JAGGER is excellent as a fellow Evangelist who has his own doubts about Gantry. Singer PATTI PAGE does nicely in a straight dramatic role.
It's easy to see why Hollywood was afraid of the Sinclair Lewis story. It certainly doesn't paint organized religion in a very positive light and, in fact, deals with the underbelly of revivalism. The story of a an unholy preacher who turned revivalism into a circus side show is so cynical, it makes anything that someone like Billy Wilder ever wrote look like child's play by comparison.
SHIRLEY JONES has the role of the prostitute who is Gantry's undoing when she pulls the con game on him of photographing him offering her money. His Achilles Heel is women and she knew it. A newspaper gets hold of the photos and his goose is cooked.
ARTHUR KENNEDY has the story's best line: "The mobs don't like their Gods to be human." I bought everything but the climactic "fire and damnation" ending with JEAN SIMMONS wandering around like a lost soul amid the flames. It seemed totally out of character for her to suddenly become so unrealistic about what was happening.
Other than that, a great movie. BURT LANCASTER never had a more fitting role.