A more elaborate kind of fantasy arises out of Lewiss belief that formal religion is based on the self-interest of its leaders. 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. He says both. During the opening service, with a crowd of more than four thousand, fire breaks out. WebOn publication, Elmer Gantry had a sensational reception. Lewis is like a ruthless hunter who spares nothing and still has ammunition left at the end of the day. Using his sales techniques, especially on one of Sister Sharon's underlings, the nave Sister Rachel, Elmer is able infiltrate her entourage. Schorer, Mark, Introduction, in Sinclair Lewis: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Mark Schorer, Prentice-Hall, 1962, p. 4. Many of my neighbors and friends see the furious posts on Facebook, with all the hysterical warnings about the imminent destruction of public education as we know it, and are honestly confused. Gantry uses his own quick wit and Bible knowledge to become an indispensable part of Sister Sharon's roadshow, but his past soon catches up with him in the form of Lulu Bains, now a prostitute. He long ago lost his faith in the literal truth of the Bible and has become an atheist. Religion, can't 'live' with it, can't live without it Good drama that had the potential to be one of the greats, Worth seeing even if time has lessened its controversial value. Higher criticism also showed that some elements in the Bible were also found in other religions and mythologies (the virgin birth, for example). She ignores the warning and they become a great success in the big city. 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. Anywhere. Tries to give the kid a break. But the arts and the sentiments and the sentimentalitiesthey were for Elmer perpetually associated only with the church. 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. Mahlon Potts is the influential minister of the First Methodist Church in Zenith. 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 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. His quest for God is a secular quest. We're confident we succeeded and have no doubt you'll agree. She had bought the plantation just two years before. At their next revival, the tent catches fire and kills a hundred people, including Sharon, but Gantry climbs over trapped women and escapes. Pursuing a career as a freelance writer, Lewis began to produce fiction with ease and ingenuity, and he published five novels from 1912 to 1919. He is a well-educated Englishman in his early thirties with a colorful past. Log in here. It has provided much of his and Americas taste in architecture, clothing, music, literature, philosophy; it has provided everything but any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason.. Sacrilege is a word that was used often in the violent arguments that accompanied the publication in 1927 of Elmer Gantry. But Elmer does have a program in Napap, which he hopes will make him something of a moral dictator. Mrs. Evans Riddle is the proprietor of the Victory Thought Power Headquarters in New York. By so doing they give themselves an advantage over the general public. Af The Pilgrim's Regress (1933) Traditionalists, therefore, rejected the new approach of liberal theology. Yes, sir-ree, it might feel simplistic but at least it's fair and square. Nevertheless, Lewis supplies sufficient background to account for Elmers going into the ministry. Some found it repugnant and accused Lewis of grossly distorting his subject matter. He charms the congregation and quickly becomes part of the community. To increase his vocabulary he begins a word list: incinerate, Merovingian, Golgotha, Leigh Hunt, defeasance, chansonromantic-sounding words. She is a monstrous creation who seems to grow in size with each revelation of her craziness. WebWhen hedonistic but charming con man Elmer Gantry meets the beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer, a roadside revivalist, he feigns piousness to join her act as a passionate preacher. In The Master, Joaquin Phoenix plays an alcoholic failure who falls in thrall to cult leader Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman). 11744. Four men and two women crawled about a pillar, barking like dogs, barking the devil out of the tree.. When a Salvation Army worker enters, Gantry shocks and moves the crowd with an impromptu, impassioned sermon equating God with love. But Page plays the small role of choir leader Sister Rachel. Despite their reservations about the dignity of revival-style preaching, many of the pastors agree that it would be best for their congregations to get excited about Christianity again in hopes that this would subsequently bolster attendance. Lewis indicates the shaping of minds and values in such a village as Elmers: The church and Sunday School at Elmers village, Paris, Kansas, a settlement of nine hundred evangelical Germans and Vermonters had been the center of all his emotions, aside from hell-raising, hunger, sleepiness, and love. (film) Elmer Gantry is a 1960 film about a con man and a female evangelist selling religion to small town America. Elizabeth S. Prioleau, "The Minister and the Seductress in American Fiction: The Adamic Myth Reduz". (205) 348-6010 Although Elmer is clearly a self-centered individual from the beginning, Lewis presents him, up to and including his conversion, as being swept along by sociological and psychological forces over which he has no control. This site -- maintained by the faculty but also involving our students, our alumni, and the graduate teaching assistants who help us in our classes -- discusses the relevance of the study of religion, in particular, and the liberal arts, in general, for understanding both the past and present, by seeing religion as but one element of wider cultural practices. She turns to healing the sick not because she has a gift or a calling for it but because it is more profitable than mere evangelizing: the whole evangelist business was limited, since even the most ardent were not likely to be saved more than three or four times. Elmers start at religious leadership is rocky. He is encouraged to stay in the church by the Reverend Andrew Pengilly, and he ends up as a minister of a Congregational church in Zenith. Edward J. Piacentino, "Babbittry Southern Style: T. S. Stribling's Unfinished Cathedral". Except in some of its sexuality (there are a couple cringe-making lines), however, the film doesnt feel outdated today. 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. He was saturated with itthe sermons, hymns, Bible stories, funerals, weddings, Sunday schools. He goes to Mizpah Seminary, where he entertains his classmates with tales of his sexual escapades. One famous evangelist was Gipsy Smith (18601947), an Englishman who made twenty-six trips to the United States. Robert J. Higgs. They have better chemistry between them than Simmons and Lancaster did, but Elmer Gantry is the grandaddy of them all. Lewiss reputation as a satirist of American life continued to develop in the 1920s with the novels Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), and Dodsworth (1929). One should imagine instead, I think, that she might have the same great-grandaddy as President Lyndon Baines Johnson: Baptist preacher George Baines. 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. After exposing the professors secret, Sin, sin, sin! She wore expensive clothes and jewelry and put on a spectacular show. "Elmer Gantry Elmer starts to detest her when he finds out that she is cold, sexually. In 1905, after two years study, he is ordained. She is a widow who owns a millinery and dressmaking shop. Transforming the community and its residents is the main goal of Northside food system organizers, who are using food as a tool to aid in that transformation. It seemed that perhaps the world had taken a step away from irrational belief. WebDownload scientific diagram | 7 Vibro compaction employing wooden gantry, 1939. For some reason Richard Brooks seemed to think of himself as the man best suited to turning great novels and plays into films, but if the results were at best entertaining ("The Brothers Karamazov", "Cat on a hot tin roof") they tended to fall far short of the originals. One of the first scenes with Sister Sharon Falconer involves her asking for donations from these people. Thus, Schorer concludes, there is no pressure upon Elmer to be forced into a position of new self-awareness. Why does Lewis include him in the book? Lewis preferred the liberal Birkhead to the conservative Stidger, and on his second visit to Kansas City, Lewis chose Birkhead as his guide. But for my money it is Jean Simmonds, surely robbed of her own Oscar here, who has the most impressive part. It tells the story of a hypocritical, corrupt, but very successful preacher named Elmer Gantry. Gantry was in the middle of trying to settle down and marry Sharon when she saw that shooting star at the end, and from that moment, she seemed to feel truly touched by God. He is a born salesman well versed with the bible. In 1944, his son Lieutenant Wells Lewis was killed in action in France during World War II. It was the best-selling work of fiction in America for the year 1927, according to Publishers Weekly.[6]. In fact, the film's theatricality can almost be seen as a strength, for it's constructed like a well-written play. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Copyright 2022 The University of Alabama It seems unlikely that Lancasters character would risk immolation for her. He befriends Frank Shallard. At the start of the novel Elmer is a college football player so little given to piety that he is known as Hell-cat. At the end of the book he is Dr. Gantry, minister of the large Wellspring Methodist Church in Zenith, with hopes of becoming the head of a national moral-rearmament organization, the National Association for the Purification of the Arts and the Press (Napap). Blessed Virgin, Mother Hera, Mother Frigga, Mother Ishtar, Mother Isis, dread Mother Astarte of the weaving arms, it is thy priestess . They read from the Song of Solomon. The film is basically how Hollywood, in the late 1950s, viewed tent religion in the early part of the twentieth century. Web1. Source: Bryan Aubrey, Critical Essay on Elmer Gantry, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006. He returns to it in the context of Sharons revival meetings. Even the physical description of Binch is calculated to evoke disgust: Dr. The Allegory of Lov, Lewis, Sinclair date the date you are citing the material. George Babbitt, the namesake of one of Lewis' best-known novels, appears in Elmer Gantry very briefly during an encounter at the Zenith Athletic Club. I know its trueits in the Bible. Literally, in one case, when the tabernacle catches fire at the end of the movie. In the following essay excerpt, Light examines quixotic elements in Elmer Gantry. Gantry's entire repertoire is performed with encyclopedic thoroughness and accuracy. For two years, he helps her lead revival meetings in large cities, mastering the art of press advertising and fundraising. Both time and cost are saved by the high efficiency. Elmer starts his career as a Baptist and then joins up with a charismatic but equally unprincipled female revivalist preacher. 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. Pengilly sees through him with the spiritual eye of an eagle, and asks, Mr. So scandalous was Lewiss portrayal of religion that the novel was banned in several cities and denounced from Finally, in the summer of 2005 I took a look after seeing several Burt Lancaster films and being reminded how good an actor he was. His widowed mother was owned by the church, we are told, and the fact that the boy was fatherless is less important than that the church could not provide Elmer with principles. Elmer Gantry sets out to do just that in the world of evangelical revivalists, and an examination of the complicated relationship between the congregations and the religious leaders of the film may help illuminate the popularity of many religious movements, even those that appear to be a farce from the outside. He calls out to God for help. Lynnell Mickelsen: Why all the conspiracy theories and pearl-clutching in this years school board race. Philip McGarry, Ph.D. in economics and philosophy, is made to show that no educated person can believe in Christianity except in a very vague way: the only dogma he was known to give out positively was the leadership of Jesusas to whose divinity he was indefinite. The good pastor, the Reverend Andrew Pengilly, finds God in nature, feels religion rather than reasons about it, and doesnt give a hang for doctrinal differences. After Elmer dumps her for Hettie, Lulu loses interest in life. 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. 41930. Gantrys pugnacious sermons quickly make him popular in Zenith, but the workload soon overwhelms him and alienates him from Cleo. 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. Shirley Jones won an Oscar for best supporting actress in her role as the woman who can bring Gantry down. 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. Her voice was warm, a little husky, desperately alive. Later he was to learn that references to Dickens, Victor Hugo, James Whitcomb Riley, Josh Billings, and Michelangelo give a sermon a very toney Chicago air. Though he does not have quixotic benignity, helpfulness, or idealism, he does have visions of how the ministry can be useful to him; he sees thousands listening to himinvited to banquets and everything , and he dreams of hundreds of beautiful women [who weep] with conviction and rush down to clasp his hand., In addition to his hypocrisy and his ignorance, Elmer is a liar, a sinner, and a coward. 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. 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." Im afraid! He replies, Thats damned nonsense! Later he says, Come on now, Clee, show some spunk! Making fun of her, he thinks, Fellow ought to be brutal, for her own sake. Brute, fake, or philanderer, Elmer Gantry seems nevertheless destined for a successful career. When hedonistic but charming con man Elmer Gantry meets the beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer, a roadside revivalist, he feigns piousness to join her act as a passionate preacher. The gantry girders are girders which supports the loads that are transmitted through the travelling wheels of the crane. After two more He is invited by a group of scholars to go on a lecture tour to oppose religious fundamentalism, but his first lecture, in a city in the southwest, he is interrupted by local toughs. Eddie is an enthusiastic Christian who becomes a student at Mizpah Theological Seminary and later a minister in western Kansas. "Religion and Sports: Three Muscular Christians in American Literature". Source: David J. Dooley, Aspiration and Enslavement, in The Art of Sinclair Lewis, University of Nebraska Press, 1967, pp. Equity is one part of a broader vision for the Hiawatha network of schools. Lewiss attack upon the villagesnowhere so embittered as in Elmer Gantry occurs through exposure of the cultural opportunities which the village provides, and these are thin indeed, Most literary materials found in the village are reflections of American popular culture before the turn of the century. She is looking to work in Applied Business Anthropology. Nevertheless, it is soon apparent that he has gone too far; to him, Christianity is not only untrue, but inconceivable. His specialty is in denouncing vice, and in Zenith he even leads a police raid on the local dens of iniquity. At times he is almost satanic, a compendium of all the vices; they are too many and too flagrant for him to be real. Novels for Students. Ferguson, Charles W., Review of Elmer Gantry, in Critical Essays on Sinclair Lewis, edited by Martin Bucco, G. K. Hall, 1986, pp. 5 Mar. It would end Sunday entertainment, curtail freedom of speech, and put restrictions on the rights of Catholics. Drama. The result is a novel that satirically represents the religious activity of America in evangelistic circles and the attitudes of the 1920s toward it. Besides being an effective satire targeted against religious hypocrisy, Elmer Gantry provides insight into the clash of cultural forces in America in the 1920s. The second date is today's Elmer forces him to resign by questioning his religious beliefs, after which Shallard gets a job with the Charity Organization Society. 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. Thus Rebecca West could write incisively about the religious and historical perspectives of Elmer Gantry: The passages in the book which present to one what Mr. Lewis regards as the proper attitude to religion are disconcertingly jejune. Miss West goes on to say that like Mark Twain, who in Connecticut Yankee looked at medieval Europe and said, My, werent they dumb? Lewis has no sense of the struggle of the human mind to evolve from chaos to the achievements of his age. More mundane examples include the star power of Scientology and Christian rock concerts. publication in traditional print. Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles on twentieth century literature. Well, he didn't disappoint here, either, with a fantastic performance as those of you who have seen this already know. He behaves cruelly to Lulu, and when Floyd comforts her with a kiss, Elmer, who has planned the whole incident, bursts in on them with Lulus father. 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. Having ridiculed the unfortunate Dr. Binch, Lewis removes him from the scene and never mentions him again. Schorer discusses Lewiss research for the novel, including the clergyman he met in Kansas City. Is there really a conflict between science and religion, between reason and faith, or can the two live in harmony? "Elmer Gantry Elmer is so infatuated with Sharon that he gives up smoking and drinking for her. Addeddate 2017-01-24 22:02:04 Identifier in.ernet.dli.2015.184871 Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t87h71c67 Ocr ABBYY FineReader 11.0 Ppi 600 Scanner Internet Archive Python library 1.2.0.dev4. There, Gantry befriends the Methodist bishop and is appointed pastor of a church in Banjo Crossing. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. Gantry becomes her lover, but loses both her and his position when she is killed in a fire at her new tabernacle. He takes care to point out that people return again and again to get converted, which would seem to negate the idea that they are saved in a once in a lifetime experience. 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. The target of his earthly desires is Beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) a sincere, but fallible woman out to build a ministry. But though this satire is perhaps the best part of the book, revivalism is not the only target. Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. Dooley argues that the novel fails because it is not a realistic portrayal of religion, and it lacks sufficient wit and humor to compensate for its unfairness. 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. It might seem that the last thing in the world Lewis wanted was sympathy for Elmer Gantry, whom he regarded, he told Allen Austin years later, as a hypocrite through and through. Yet he wrote in the Nation in 1928, Actually, I like the Babbitts, the Dr. Pickerbaughs, the Will Kennicotts, and even the Elmer Gantrys rather better than anyone else on earth. Furthermore, he told Betty Stevens that the Babbitts were my children and I wanted to reform them. Gantry, too. 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. Frank finds some shame in being a preacher and longs to prove that he is nevertheless a real man. Not only had he been swathed in theology, but all his experience had been in books instead of the speech of toiling men. The affair threatens to destroy Gantry, but Rigg hires a detective to besmear Hettie, and she and her husband are forced to sign an affidavit declaring Gantrys innocence. North, who is in charge of the National Association for the Purification of Art and the Press, known as Napap. For the most part they are hypocrites, not even believing the doctrines they preach to their congregations every week. At the novels beginning, Gantry is captain of the football team at the rowdy campus at Terwillinger College, a Baptist school. Even Gantry wouldnt have been such a bad fellow if hed been, say, a salesman. Only a very curious moral outlook could have permitted the creator of such a monster as Elmer Gantry to say that his characters lack of a sense of decency would not have been objectionable if he had changed his profession . Gantry is portrayed as a smooth talking but frustrated salesman, struggling to make a living. Hettie Dowler becomes Elmers secretary at Zenith when Elmer is already famous. Buy, Sell, and Trade your Firearms and Gear. Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/film-review-burt-lancaster-s-oscar-winning-elmer-gantry-trylon-theater-monday-and-tu/). WebBethel Merriday, by Sinclair Lewis, free ebook. He hates piety and prefers drunkenness, profanity, and seducing women. Mrs. Gantry is Elmers mother. Reverend Dr. Willoughby Quarles is president of Terwillinger College. Elmer tries to seduce her, but once she has become devoted to him he gets bored with her and treats her cruelly. A satire can be aimed at an individual or a group. Dooley, D. J., The Art of Sinclair Lewis, University of Nebraska Press, 1967, pp. Especially ironic is the way he champions love, an emotion he seems incapable of, in his sermons, preaches against ambition, when he himself is so patently ambitious, and organizes crusades against (mainly sexual) immorality, when he has difficulty resisting sexual temptation himself. 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). The college president declares that he is a born preacher, and everyone urges him to become a minister. He befriends Shallard and tries to answer Shallards doubts about the truth of the Christian faith. WebElmer turns to Rigg for help, who hires a detective to dig up incriminating evidence against Hettie and her husband. I have told you a mystery. She is the supreme fantasist. At Mizpah Theological Seminary, Elmer and his fellow students all smoke in their dormitory, even though smoking is practically forbidden. For all that, you also fear for a world in which the influence of modern-day Gantries shows no sign of diminishing. The trouble is, he needed a good reason for his broad and over-the-top acting. Elmer gets converted to Christianity only because he cannot resist the pressures put on him to do so. . I am above sin! He is a simple, decent, pious man who is loved by his congregation. A Best Actor Oscar went to Burt Lancaster for his outstanding performance as a con-man-turned-preacher in this provocative indictment of religious corruption. Then read chapter 30, section 5, where Jim reappears. He first worked with William L. "Big Bill" Stidger, pastor of the Linwood Boulevard Methodist Episcopal Church in Kansas City, Missouri. On a rainy, cool day Ha Tien is a warm and welcoming site. You're all doomed to perdition! 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. because Joness Lulu is a silly, air-spun girl. Elmer Gantry subtitles. A modernist movement, led by such preachers as Harry Emerson Fosdick and reinforced by the essays that appeared in The Christian Century, was concerned with making the church more of a live option for the intellectual and the sophisticated city dweller. 2007 eNotes.com He searches for his better nature: he will start again, never lie or cheat or boast. The clash between fundamentalists and liberals comes to a dramatic and violent climax in the final incident involving Shallard. He is also too bad to be true. A lady runs by Elmer in a blue jacket, and her jacket is on fire. Once Gantry accuses the city government of protecting the brothels and drug dealers, he becomes one of the most powerful men in Zenith. For such a high-spirited boy as Elmer, this was such a limited, stifling environment to grow up in that it effectively steered him away from the kind of occupation that would have suited him much better: It was lamentable to see this broad young man, who would have been so happy in the prize-ring, the fish-market, or the stock exchange, poking through the cobwebbed corridors of Terwillinger.. Two years before adapting Elmer Gantry to the sceen, writer and director Richard Brooks, also adapted and directed The Brothers Karamazov (1958), which featured William Shatner (the original Captain Kirk) in his first movie role, as the saintly brother Alexei.