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For all that, you also fear for a world in which the influence of modern-day Gantries shows no sign of diminishing. In 1903, Lewis went to Yale University, where he served as editor of the Yale Literary Magazine. (540) 7.7 2 h 26 min 1960 13+. The character of Sharon Falconer was loosely based on events in the career of the Canadian-born American radio evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who founded the Pentecostal Christian denomination known as the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 1927. Terwillinger College and Mizpah Theological Seminary are both fundamentalist institutions. NATIONALITY: British But though this satire is perhaps the best part of the book, revivalism is not the only target. He also thinks that Baptist leaders are word-splitting, text-twisting, applause-hungry, job-hunting, medieval-minded second-raters . Horace Carp hates the Baptists and wants to switch to the more upscale Episcopalians as soon as possible because this will give him a better social position in which he will be able to marry a nice rich girl. Brother Karkis only wants his divinity degree so he can get a better paying job. She is also an insane perversion of the sanctity of the elect, for she declares to Elmer, I cant sin! Fired from the Seminary, he is hired as a traveling salesman of farm implements. Though the bulldog of the football team in college, Elmer shows his cowardice during the fire in Sharon Falconers tabernacle (which is built out over the water): In howling panic, Elmer sprang among them, knocked them aside, struck down a girl who stood in his way, yanked open the door, and got through it the last, the only one, to get through it. He then ran out a little into the surf and dragged in a woman who had already safely touched bottom, and then at least thirty more who had already rescued themselves. Movies Podcasts Reviews Podcasts Reviews Lewis seems determined to avoid religious discrimination: all sects appear in equally bad light. Driven by ambition to become a bishop, he is hugely successful, and is given bigger and bigger churches. There have been five adaptations of the novel. Lewis finished the book while mending a broken leg on Jackfish Island in Rainy Lake, Minnesota. , Sinclair Lewis and the Method of Half-Truths, in Society and Self in the Novel, Columbia University Press, 1956, pp. He possesses none of the cardinal virtues and many of the cardinal sins. Gantry introduces savvy business practices to Sharons ministry and manipulative psychology to the services themselves, and Sharon becomes wealthy as a result. The Allegory of Lov, Lewis, Sinclair A more elaborate kind of fantasy arises out of Lewiss belief that formal religion is based on the self-interest of its leaders. Don Pickens is Frank Shallards roommate at Mizpah Theological Seminary. Later, he is kidnapped and beaten nearly to death, an episode that leaves him blinded. The legal profession does not suit the unethical Gantry. After several failed efforts to hear God calling him to the ministry, Gantry shares a bottle of whiskey with Jim and emerges with the feeling of having received the call. But it certainly was worth the wait. He urges Elmer to become a minister. You're all doomed to perdition! But what perhaps made Elmer Gantry seem like such an act of outrage to so many readers is that Lewis did not simply treat religion in relation to other aspects of American life; he saw it instead as the molder of basic attitudes, most of which were, in his opinion, bad. As Lewis so devastatingly wrote, Elmer got everything from the church and Sunday School, except, perhaps, any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason. The implication is that those three qualities were not present in the Baptist church of Paris, Kansas. Later Frank is thrown from the church and he ventures forth as a worker in a charity organization. Protestant fundamentalism was in part a reaction in the early twentieth century to the development of the higher criticism in Biblical scholarship. In 1944, his son Lieutenant Wells Lewis was killed in action in France during World War II. "Elmer Gantry" can be considered the quintessential exploration into the omnipresent duality existing between a person's religious faith and simultaneous character defects. The preacher tries to warn him off. While Gantry seeks and eventually gets forgiveness from Sharon, tragedy strikes when she finally manages to get out of her revivalist tent and opens a permanent church. Robert J. Higgs. because Joness Lulu is a silly, air-spun girl. 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 was saturated with itthe sermons, hymns, Bible stories, funerals, weddings, Sunday schools. North, who is in charge of the National Association for the Purification of Art and the Press, known as Napap. He says both. Most distressing of all, says Frank, the sermons of the preachers are agonizingly dull. So Frank leaves the church temporarily to enter the army where he learns to be common with common men; he schools himself further with Ethan Frome, Pre Goriot, Tono-Bungay, and Renans Jesus. Edward J. Piacentino, "Babbittry Southern Style: T. S. Stribling's Unfinished Cathedral". Now in college, Gantry and his roommate, Jim Lefferts, spend much of their time drinking and chasing women, but their primary amusement comes from ridiculing their classmates incessant religious proselytizing. 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. Now dont you go explaining! Lewiss personal life was troubled, and he and his second wife were divorced in 1942. Elmer wants to marry her but she says she is too old for marriage (she is thirty-two, three or four years older than Elmer) and she must also remain free to devote herself to her missionary work. Over seventy-five years after it first appeared, Elmer Gantry still has power to shock as well as amuse. You're all sinners! "Elmer Gantry", directed by Richard Brooks, is one of his best. Will his charade collapse when an ex-lover shows up to settle a score? Mrs. Evans Riddle is the proprietor of the Victory Thought Power Headquarters in New York. Elmer Gantry is a nuanced look at the world of evangelists and revivals. Elmer is, obviously enough, an example of the latter. But throughout his career he wonders whether there is any value in his work. 3945; originally published in New York Herald Tribune Books, March 13, 1927. Chester Brown is a prominent Methodist preacher in Zenith and one of Elmers rivals. I give this movie a 10 only because there is nothing above that. The fledgling work even had legs, if short ones. 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. I know its trueits in the Bible. Lewis seems to have had a particular loathing of the conversion experience that is so central to Protestant spirituality. He searches for his better nature: he will start again, never lie or cheat or boast. ), Elmers friend Jim Lefferts, a freethinker, has a somewhat wider list than Elmer: an encyclopedia, Pickwick, Swinburne, Ingersoll, and Paine. 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. A typical picaresque narrative chronicles the exploits of a rogue, an immoral but not criminal character who lives by his wits. She is certainly not the saintly evangelist she presents herself to be, and she maintains a smug sense of superiority over the common folk she seeks to save. He is ordained despite the examiners doubts about his orthodoxy, and he takes charge of a small church in Catawba. Your email address will not be published. Binch stopped gulping his fried pork chops and held out a flabby, white, holy hand.. Later, Lewis will show Elmer no mercy, but at this stage his target is not so much the soon-to-be preacher but the social and psychological context in which he is formed. He has an affair with female evangelist Sharon Falconer, which ends with her death in a flaming tabernacle. WebThis count will explain the meaning of Macrons declaration that peace, security, and stability in Europe, and in the Ukraine, are for Europeans to agree with Russia. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. WebSpecialties: Welcome to Garrison Brothers, home of the first and oldest legal whiskey distillery in Texas. Named himself in honour of the character in the Burt Lancaster movie Elmer Gantry. She is flirtatious, and able to get men to do her bidding. Every decision Elmer makes thereafter is one of compromise. Kraus used []. 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 . He falls for her on sight, and follows her to Lincoln, Nebraska, for her next revival meeting. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.com cannot guarantee each citation it generates. Elmer Gantry is a picaresque novel. 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. Reverend Andrew Pengilly is the old pastor of the Catawba Methodist Church. He hates piety and prefers drunkenness, profanity, and seducing women. He dies in a gambling den. Lewis divorced his wife in 1928, and married Dorothy Thompson. The new Wellspring Church has been built, and Elmer is awarded an honorary doctorate from Abernathy College. He begins a course of home study, in a brief episode which must play ironically against Benjamin Franklins self-education. By what name was Elmer Gantry (1960) officially released in India in English? He denounces other churches for their laxity in condemning sin. Hes the all-American salesman: hed believe, really believe, in anything he thought youd buy. Harry Zenz is a student at the Mizpah Theological Seminary. Elmer Gantry: Sin. . He is an opportunist, a rogue, a charlatan. (February 23, 2023). The trouble is, he needed a good reason for his broad and over-the-top acting. Additionally, this positive representation of the necessity of revivals to faltering churches is soured by the probability that Falconers revivals take advantage of the lower class. Bess Needham marries Frank Shallard and bears him three children. A brooding look at revivalist religion in which the over-the-top acting of Burt Lancaster steals the show . However as the pressure builds to tear him down, can Gantry prevent his past from returning to haunt him? By so doing they give themselves an advantage over the general public. The ships captain who in the storm took counsel with the orphaned but righteous child of missionaries in Zomballa. Meanwhile, Hettie turns out to be a married woman who, with her husband, tries to blackmail Elmer. Awards In a scene where Gantry and Falconer are hoping to get funding to set up their revival in the city of Zenith, lack of attendance is straightforwardly given as the reason for seeking out the revival. Everything conspires to overwhelm him and break down his defenses; he does not really have a chance. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Life opened before him, clean, joyous, full of the superb chances of a Christian knighthood. 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. He goes to Mizpah Seminary, where he entertains his classmates with tales of his sexual escapades. 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. Afterward, he must resign himself to helplessness for the rest of his life. (Courtesy of Degebo, Berlin, Germany.) But occasionally Lewis tries to endow him with a soul, as in the incident of his conversion at Terwillinger College. Amplifying and connecting marginalized voices, Dance as deep listening: Weave by Rosy Simas Danse comes to the Ordway, Ritual and revelation: Black Ensemble Players reimagine Shakespeare, North Minneapolis takes back food systems, land through urban agriculture, Ha Tien Market still finds home along the Green Line, despite problems, St. Pauls school resource officer policies still leave district room for improvement, Hiawatha Collegiate High School goes beyond beating the odds for students of color, [COMMUNITY VOICES] Non-criminal technical violations are increasing Minnesotas prison population, Community Voices: [PHOTOS] Minneapolis comes out strong for Families Belong Together nationwide march, IGGERS DIGEST | Katar River: flavors and aromas of Ethiopia. Co-stars Jean Simmons and Shirley Jones. However, the date of retrieval is often important. For example, the division between Northern and Southern Baptists is explained in this way: [B]efore the Civil War the Northern Baptists proved by the Bible, unanswerably, that slavery was wrong; and the Southern Baptists proved by the Bible, irrefutably, that slavery was the will of God. Later in the novel, Frank Shallard realizes how threatened conservative clergymen are by scientific knowledge and how inadequate they are to preside over educational institutions. WebElmer Gantry was a labor of love for Brooks, who had dreamed of filming Lewis's novel for more than a decade and spent two years writing the script, which won the Oscar for Best Elmer seems a demonic figure. , Sinclair Lewis: An American Life, McGraw Hill, 1961, pp. Encyclopedia.com. And yet Im not a liar! "Elmer Gantry Im grateful to them for proving the book. Very few observers, however, thought that he had been as fair and dispassionate as he pretended; one comparatively balanced review of the novel was entitled Red Lewis in a Red Rage, and his former professor William Lyon Phelps declared in an interview that the book must have been written when Lewis was literally foaming at the mouth . Edwin Muir was one of the few critics who found some complexity in Lewiss attitude toward his central character; he thought this complexity was due to the division of intentions which was evident in other Lewis novelsLewis wanted to write both a satire and a novel, to indict his hero and to sympathize with him at the same time. Others praised its accurate reporting and its denunciation of hypocrisy, comparing Lewis to great satirists such as Voltaire and Swift. Elmer Gantry is a role and a character as big as he is, and Lancaster puts his whole back into it. WebIn the 1920s, Elmer Gantry entertains a group of fellow salesmen in a speakeasy with his ribald jokes and easy charm. After her death, he joins the Methodist Church. Therefore, that information is unavailable for most Encyclopedia.com content. As he gains experience, Elmer attempts to broaden his mind. Elmer loathes him but Frank Shallard regards him as a friend. Gantry befriends a famous criminal attorney, T. J. Rigg, who becomes his adviser and confidant. Elmer is so infatuated with Sharon that he gives up smoking and drinking for her. He thinks they might, for all he knows, be true, and that is enough for him. "Elmer Gantry" United Artists Simon received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her performance as a runaway housewife in "The Happy Ending" (1969), In a sense it is more centrally concerned because the pull between the old American and the new American was so apparent in the religious controversies of the time. The bill had always been defeated, but it was gaining more votes in every session [407408]. One Sunday, he is surprised to see Lulu in church, and the next day he begins an affair with her. Bill Morgan sees thru Elmer and tells Sharon that in 1917 he was expelled from the seminary for seducing the deacon's daughter. Still, her character of a betrayed woman who continues to care for Elmer illuminates the paradox of his power: he doesnt mean to hurt anyone, but he does. John K. Roth. 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. 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. In order to conquer her, he must use his extensive repertoire of biblical quips, quotes and bawdy antidotes. Webdc.title: Elmer Gantry. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. 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. Twin Cities Daily Planet (https://www.tcdailyplanet.net/film-review-burt-lancaster-s-oscar-winning-elmer-gantry-trylon-theater-monday-and-tu/). 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. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. For the most part they are hypocrites, not even believing the doctrines they preach to their congregations every week. Elmer Gantry appears as a minor character in two later, lesser-known Lewis novels: The Man Who Knew Coolidge and Gideon Planish. So, I'll give him the credit and assume he was just playing his role, not hamming it up too much as it often appears. I'm talkin' about divine love - not carnal love. Source: Martin Light, Mantrap and Elmer Gantry, in The Quixotic Vision of Sinclair Lewis, Purdue University Press, 1975, pp. Sin, sin, sin! In another service a couple comes forward to ask that Falconer cure the husbands deafness. Jones is too frothy, but when she appears halfway through, she adds bubbles to a long movie that was starting to go flat. While working for the Daily Courier in Waterloo, Iowa, in 1908, he wrote an editorial about fraudulent evangelists, which suggests that the seeds of Elmer Gantry were already being sown. 99107. The purpose of Napap is to make life conform to the ideals agreed upon by the principal Christian Protestant denominations. This would be accomplished by combining into one association all the moral organizations in Americathe Anti-Saloon League, the Lords Day Alliance, the Watch and Ward Society, and the Methodist Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Moralsand then lobbying for legislated morality. I'm not talking about what happens just before the end, but Ed. Was a member of the of the bogus Fleetwood Mac band, that the then manager Clifford Davis send on a US tour in 1974 when the real Fleetwood Mac rejected the tour. He really shines as a tarnished, immoral salesman who spends Christmas at a bar and leaves with one of the ladies during the Great Depression in the heartland. Therefore, be sure to refer to those guidelines when editing your bibliography or works cited list. Only the novels It Cant Happen Here (1935) and Kingsblood Royal (1947) have stood the test of time. Probably the most significant thing to know about this film is that the story is set in 1927. We are back in the land of wizards and ogres once more. 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. He is rewarded by being appointed minister of the Wellspring Methodist Church in the large city of Zenith, where the worldly trustee, T. J. Rigg, advises him to bring in the crowds with a rousing sermon denouncing vice. Sharon Falconer is an equally striking example of his satiric power. Gantry maintains friendships with most pastors in Zenith but loathes Philip McGarry, a pastor in a poor neighborhood who has been a friend and mentor to Shallard. He speaks in many big cities and acquires a new secretary, Hettie Bowler, with whom he has an affair. 12631. Gantrys mother is a strict fundamentalist, so Gantry spent much of his childhood in church, where he learned the dour lifestyle of a Christian. In this scene at the end of the 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. Drama. At Terwillinger College, Elmer captains the football team. If I could only believe it! He has been educated by Roger Williams, Adoniram Judson, Luther, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, George Washington, Lincoln, Robert Ingersoll, William James, and Frasers Golden Bough. He is a born salesman well versed with the bible. Yet through it all, he is awarded ecclesiastical advancement, even though he barely escapes ruin at the conclusion of the novel when one of his secretaries, Hettie Dowler, tries to blackmail him. GENRE: Fiction, nonfiction William Donninger Styles is a rich businessman in Zenith. J. E. North is the executive secretary of the National Association for the Purification of Art and the Press (Napap). 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. According to Brooks, He [Lewis] confessed that he really loved Elmer, the big bum, and hated only what he stood for; but half-way through the novel he had been carried away, and turned on his character and demolished him.. Definitely a film to see on the big screen. It is a pity that Lewis did not choose to develop more fully the few exceptions to the prevailing mendacity, including the lightly sketched figure of Reverend Andrew Pengilly. He meets Elmer on a steamer home from Europe and invites him to lecture on behalf of Napap. Elmer Gantry is a picaresque novel. He uses the church to further his own ambitions for power and fame. Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles on twentieth century literature. Starring Shirley Jones Arthur Kennedy Burt Lancaster Patti Page Jean Simmons. 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. 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. He spends a year there, and three years in Vulcan, where Cleo gives birth to two children. Lewis made the point that Protestantism has nurtured America in the same way it has nurtured Elmer. Traditionalists, therefore, rejected the new approach of liberal theology. Be the first to contribute. . One thing he is aware of is that professing belief serves his purposes very well, and for all he knows, every word of Baptist or Methodist dogma might be true.