Elmer Gantry is on PBS....talk about evangelical preachers? Great movie.

[madfloridian]

Jean Simmmons, Burt Lancaster, Dean Jagger.

It is WUSF in our area. Started at 9:00 here, but goes on for about 2 more hours.

Novel by Sinclair Lewis.
"Elmer Gantry is a 1927 novel by Sinclair Lewis. It tells the story of a young, obnoxious, womanizing college athlete who, upon realizing the power and prestige that being a preacher can bring, pursues his "religious" ambitions with relish, contributing to the downfall, even death, of key people around him as the years pass. Although he continues to womanize, is often exposed as a fraud, and frequently faces a complete downfall, Gantry is never fully discredited and always manages to emerge triumphant and to reach ever greater heights of social status. The novel ends as the Rev. Gantry prays for the USA to be a "moral nation" and simultaneously admires the legs of a new choir singer."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Gantry

[BlueJazz]

1. Wonderful Movie....Burt Lancaster at his finest. nt

[madfloridian]

2. It never gets old.

Brilliant acting by everyone.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. * is a crude, vulgar imitation of Elmer Gantry, who is a crude, vulgar imitation

of a Christian minister.

[kestrel91316]

4. I'm just now reading the novel for the first time, I think

when I'm done I'll rent the movie!

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Then you should also read "Babbit", also by Sinclair Lewis since the

movie imprudently incorporates that novel into "Elmer Gantry".

EG, the novel, is wonderful. I often found myself talking to the book and shaking my head.

[madfloridian]

6. That movie is close to 50 years old....and timeless.

[madfloridian]

7. More about it....from enotes....book banned in many cities.

"Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry (New York, 1927) is a ferocious satire against Protestant fundamentalist religion in the American Midwest. It tells the story of a hypocritical, corrupt, but very successful preacher named Elmer Gantry. Elmer starts his career as a Baptist and then joins up with a charismatic but equally unprincipled female revivalist preacher. After her death, he joins the Methodist Church. Amoral and relentlessly ambitious, Elmer builds a statewide and national reputation as a fiery preacher who never tires of denouncing vice, while at the same time feeling no need to curb his own vices, particularly adultery.

Besides being an effective satire targeted against religious hypocrisy, Elmer Gantry provides insight into the clash of cultural forces in America in the 1920s. During this period, traditional religious believers were deeply disturbed by the encroachments made on faith by science and secularism. They also decried the growth within the church of the “higher criticism,” that sought to understand the Bible based on modern methods of scholarship.

On publication, Elmer Gantry had a sensational reception. So scandalous was Lewis’s portrayal of religion that the novel was banned in several cities and denounced from pulpits across the nation. The famous evangelist Billy Sunday called Lewis “Satan’s cohort.”

Over seventy-five years after it first appeared, Elmer Gantry still has power to shock as well as amuse."

http://www.enotes.com/elmer-gantry/

[anitar1]

8. And nothing has changed. n/t

[pnorman]

9. I saw that movie a loooong time back.

I seem to recall that the ending had been "softened", so as to make it a little more "acceptable" to the Harper Vally PTA of that era. I'll check out Amazon for a DVD. That usually includes a lot of worthwhile bonus material.

Here it is on-line: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300851.txt ENJOY!

pnorman

[madfloridian]

10. The picture ending was much different than the book then.

"He turned to include the choir, and for the first time he saw that
there was a new singer, a girl with charming ankles and lively
eyes, with whom he would certainly have to become well acquainted.
But the thought was so swift that it did not interrupt the pæan of
his prayer:

"Let me count this day, Lord, as the beginning of a new and more
vigorous life, as the beginning of a crusade for complete morality
and the domination of the Christian church through all the land.
Dear Lord, thy work is but begun! We shall yet make these United
States a moral nation!"

And they are still trying.

From your link.

[pnorman]

11. I'm not even too sure now about the ending. It was so long ago.

It's $7.00 + $2.60 (used VG) at Amazon. There are no "bonus features", and no mention of "digital remastering", but it has subtitles. My hearing is pretty well shot, so I always appreciate that. At that price, I'll probably buy it.

A netflix-addicted friend, probably watches at LEAST one movie per day. I cut television COLD about 8 years ago, and I have no intention of picking up THAT addiction. But if it's the sort of movie that'll bear rewatching a couple of times a year for several years, buying the DVD makes some sense to me.

pnorman

[last_texas_dem]

12. I love that book

I've read several Sinclair Lewis books in the last two to three years and he has become one of my favorite authors. In some ways, the situations in his novels are totally of their time, while at the same time, the points he is making and the personalities of the characters he is discussing could be written just as accurately about current situations. He was a spot-on satirical novelist.

I've never seen any movies of his books, but that sounds like it would be an interesting one to check out sometime.