The church filled him with awe, frightened him, became the center of all his emotions. A brooding look at revivalist religion in which the over-the-top acting of Burt Lancaster steals the show . There is a definite give and take between Gantry and Falconer and the congregants in Elmer Gantry. What of Jesuss teachings? Will his charade collapse when an ex-lover shows up to settle a score? But Frank rages on at the inconsistencies in doctrine, the contradictions in the Bible, the evil men who are ministers, and the fools and dullards who work about him in Zenith: Gantry, Bishop Toomis, Chester Brown, Hickenlooper, and PottsPotts especially, who gets his idea of human motives out of George Eliot and Margaret Deland, and his ideas of economics out of editorials in the Advocate, and his idea as to what he really is accomplishing out of the flattery of his Ladies Aid! Frank adds that he doesnt find Jesus an especially admirable characterJesus was more vain and furious than a leader should be. 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. Lewis is like a ruthless hunter who spares nothing and still has ammunition left at the end of the day. Protestant fundamentalism was in part a reaction in the early twentieth century to the development of the higher criticism in Biblical scholarship. Lewis died of heart disease in Rome, Italy, in 1951. This has been the hottest school board race Ive seen in 25 years of living in Minneapolis, with lots of conspiracy theories and pearl-clutching. Every decision Elmer makes thereafter is one of compromise. 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. Lewis seems to have had a particular loathing of the conversion experience that is so central to Protestant spirituality. Lewis researched the novel by observing the work of various preachers in Kansas City in his so-called "Sunday School" meetings on Wednesdays. Lewis preferred the liberal Birkhead to the conservative Stidger, and on his second visit to Kansas City, Lewis chose Birkhead as his guide. 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. Sinclair Lewiss Elmer Gantry (New York, 1927) is a ferocious satire against Protestant fundamentalist religion in the American Midwest. The incident is not strictly necessary for the plot, and Leffertss father never appears in the novel again. The film is basically how Hollywood, in the late 1950s, viewed tent religion in the early part of the twentieth century. Bishop Toomis possesses a complete Dickens, a complete Walter Scott, Tennyson, Macaulay, Ruskin, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Winston Churchill, Elizabeth of the German Garden, and books on travel and nature study: How to Study the Birds, My Summer in the Rockies, and Pansies for Thoughts. . What are his leading characteristics? 23 Feb. 2023 . I am Sharon Falconer now! He also analyzes the characterization and structure of the novel and Lewiss occasional failure to integrate his story-telling with the social facts he presents. To increase his vocabulary he begins a word list: incinerate, Merovingian, Golgotha, Leigh Hunt, defeasance, chansonromantic-sounding words. Elmer Gantry Sharons real name is Katie Jonas; she picked out the name Sharon Falconer when she was working as a stenographer. 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. For several sessions of congress he had backed a bill for a federal censorship of all fiction, plays, and moving pictures, with a penitentiary sentence for any author mentioning adultery even by implication, ridiculing prohibition, or making light of any Christian sect or minister. Awards He hates piety and prefers drunkenness, profanity, and seducing women. Novels for Students. Gary H. Mayer, "Love is More Than the Evening Star: A Semantic Analysis of Elmer Gantry and The Man Who Knew Coolidge". 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. REL 360: Popular Culture/Public Humanities, Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, Humans and Nazis: Reevaluating the Conversation of. He fell in love with Sharon when he first met her, and is devoted to her. During his career, Gantry contributes to the downfall, physical injury, and even death of key people around him, including a sincere minister, Frank Shallard, who is plagued by doubt. Elmer denounces his old classmate Shallard, who now preaches at a Congregational church in Zenith, calling him practically an atheist. Elmer thinks he is fat and pompous, but respects him nonetheless. 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. Continuity mistake: At the end, there is a scene in a burning church. Her main supporter is worldly William Morgan (Dean Jagger) who believes in Falconer, and sees Gantry and Lefferts for the opportunistic impediments they are. One should imagine instead, I think, that she might have the same great-grandaddy as President Lyndon Baines Johnson: Baptist preacher George Baines. As a boy, the Baptist church was all he knew. BETHEL MERRIDAY - mail.freeread.com.au As Elmer turns an attractive and charming preacher with a large audience . Sharon is supposed to be a firebrand, based on evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, part Houdini, part Teddy Roosevelt, who preached a dramatic God. One of the first scenes with Sister Sharon Falconer involves her asking for donations from these people. After the fire and Sharons death, Elmer is conscience-stricken. Robert J. Higgs. Gantry, why dont you believe in God?. Light examines what he sees as quixotic elements in the novel, especially in the characters Sharon Falconer and Frank Shallard. Gantry's noisy methods seem to work, even if they draw derision from the religious establishment and attacks from the cynical press. You're all doomed to perdition. AFI|Catalog - American Film Institute I give this movie a 10 only because there is nothing above that. 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. In it he established ties with Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. But shifting moods again, she can acknowledge that she is just an ignorant young woman with a lot of misdirected energyand even an evil one: Oh, I hate the little vicessmoking, swearing, scandal, drinking just enough to be silly. He advises Elmer not to denounce vice directly, by naming names and giving addresses of illegal drinking places, because the owners of such buildingswho of course have no knowledge of any illegal activitiesare often leading church contributors and attacking them would jeopardize their support for the church. On his first visit in 1889, he held campaigns in cities from Boston to San Francisco. Elmer is subjected to a kind of collective emotional manipulation. Jim Lefferts is Elmers roommate and his only friend at Terwillinger College. Within the Protestant church, a battle rages between the traditionalists, or fundamentalists, who believe in the literal truth of the Bible, and the liberals, who believe that some parts of the Bible may be understood in a symbolic sense. Meanwhile, Hettie turns out to be a married woman who, with her husband, tries to blackmail Elmer. He is taken with Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) who runs revival meetings. It is Elmers Napoleonic ambition to combine all such organizations to the greater glory of himself: He would combine in one association all the moral organizations in Americaperhaps, later, in the entire world. The footballer wins by flattering Elmer, insulting Elmers courage, and challenging Elmer to a fight over The Lord. END I love the big onesmurder, lust, cruelty, ambition! She invites Elmer to visit the old Falconer place in Virginia, but when they arrive, she confesses that she is really just Katie Jonas, born in Utica, whose father worked in a brickyard. Thats Elmer Gantry. 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. As a preacher, he shamelessly plays on peoples emotions and their fear of Hell. I believe! At times I wondered if he wasn't overacting, but his character called for a very animated salesman-type person. He denounces other churches for their laxity in condemning sin. Elmer, with the help of T. J. Rigg, turns the tables on her and preserves his career. External Reviews Elmer Gantry Despite this though the film is still quite engaging and enjoyable as it delves into this world with a certain amount of glee; the fact that it peels off this world to look at Gantry specifically is a bit of a shame because it cuts under that focus a little. pat hingle elevator accident At the beginning of the novel, Elmer is drunk, but he is drunk only in the fashion of a hell-raising college boy who talks a little like Huck Finn (his companion, perhaps significantly, is named Jim). 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. In the mid-1920s, Elmer Gantry is a hard-living, smooth-talking traveling salesman who often uses Christian references in his sales pitches to his largely Christian clients. They hypnotize themselves, says Jim Lefferts to Elmer, trying to persuade him not to go along with it. 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. Thus equipped, Elmer advances to conquer the world. Gantry threatens to avenge him but takes no action. 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. Your email address will not be published. The story of a womanizing con man and an evangelist selling religion all across America was an Burt Lancaster's Oscar Winning performance in the title role was well-worth the accolades. Eddie is an enthusiastic Christian who becomes a student at Mizpah Theological Seminary and later a minister in western Kansas. And he has involvements with several of his church secretaries. Tough pla takes the ease of use of regular pla and steps it up. 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 looks like we don't have any synopsis for this title yet. Elmer Gantry 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. Wests point is a telling one. WebHappy Birthday # 75..Barbara Lynn Herzstein, better known as Barbara Hershey, An Actress. It's sophisticated script, complex characters, and wonderful acting opened a whole new world for me. In another service a couple comes forward to ask that Falconer cure the husbands deafness.