Rent Elmer Gantry (1960)

Period Melodrama. - Elmer Gantry review by Steve

A vivacious, intelligent film set in the midwest in the 1920s about an itinerant troupe of revivalists working the rural towns of the bible belt, passing the hat around the poor farming families of the depression. After being joined by travelling salesman Elmer Gantry, they try to take on the challenge of adapting to the new markets of the cities.

 This is the role Burt Lancaster was born to play, the charismatic preacher: big hearted, generous, forgiving and full of sin. And he delivers a huge performance. It is an actors' film, with Jean Simmons cleverly ambiguous as the star of the show, Sister Sharon, and Shirley Jones dazzling as Lulu Bains, the sex worker from Gantry's past.

Elmer Gantry was adapted from Sinclair Lewis' 1927 novel which drew on Sister Aimee Semple McPherson's showbiz evangelism. It is a curiously American phenomenon, fusing capitalism and Protestantism. The film examines quite forensically a broad range of themes around the subject of evangelistic faith, much of it editorialised through Arthur Kennedy's atheistic news journalist. It is cynical of revivalism's provenance, ethics and virtues.

The story has a valid point to make about the preachers' exploitation of their followers, but this is by no means a dissertation. The threadbare locations, the impoverished times, the showmanship and the personalities are vividly brought to life. It is an exuberant, colourful and rich production carried with dynamic magnetism by Burt Lancaster.