Repent, Sinners, Repent- With The Film Adaptation Of Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry In Mind

 

DVD Review

 

By Sam Lowell

 

Elmer Gantry, starring Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Shirley Jones, Arthur Kennedy, directed by Richard Brooks, based loosely on the novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis, 1960   

 

No question maybe since the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s in America when the new republic was first “burned over” by revival fever campground, big tent fundamentalist Christian religion has had a serious place in the day to day workings of society. Now a lot of this started and stayed out in the heartland, that stretch from upstate New York (which was the spawning ground Second Awakening) to the Rockies, especially out there in the flatlands. It spoke, for good or evil, to the periodic personal drought many isolated farmlands folk felt about their lives drifting away from them, their alienation from the big city ways that were increasing cutting into and mocking their homespun values. And that my friends, religious or not, sinners or saved, is what makes the film under review, Elmer Gantry, a remarkable look at a slice of life about the religious revivals of the 1920s as chronicled by Sinclair Lewis in his novel of the same name. Those who do not today understand the call of the evangelicals from the 1980s revival, understand the draw of the big tent revival gatherings will get a feel for the sweep, for the burned over districts when the revival came through   after viewing this film.    

Lewis’ book and the film as well takes a serious stab at the notion of the big tent revival as just another shucking, another hustle for dough for some very personal reasons along with its promoters and hangers-on and that is an important take-away from the film as well. But beyond the snake oil salesmanship aspect of the religious revival tent the experience spoke to people who had lost their moorings, had lost faith in their nominal church experiences, had failed to partake of the big city vices and virtues of the modern world. It is easy to dismiss the rubes ready to be saved by some passing stranger as ready to be taken in by religious hustlers as the grifter, the con man and the roper at the state fair come post- harvest time. And left to hang out dry just the same way. But you would miss out how important the need to be saved experience is. One of the most interesting short scenes in the film is when Elmer asked the janitor cleaning up the tent after the fervor of the revival was over for the evening about what drew him to the tent. The man confessed to be being a sinner, a man of the whiskey bottle. Confessed too to having been fallen off the wagon four times and saved five times. Said he needed both experiences. True, brother, true.

Okay now that I have made my pitch, now that sinner and saved has been dealt with let’s cut to the chase. Elmer Gantry, failed theological student and self-confessed sinner, played by Burt Lancaster who won a deserved Oscar for his performance, hell, who else would you have offered the part to in 1960 to play a wised-up con man with a pot of gold trailing him ready to move to the big tent, in out in the heartland hustling appliances when he ran smack dab into a revival in some small hick town. Except here the revivalist was no hustler, was a true believer, was working for the Lord to bring in the sinners and wash them clean. Yes right until the end Sister Sharon Falconer, played by fresh dewy faced Jean Simmons, played it straight, played the Lord’s agent whether he wanted her to or not. Elmer seeing his play, sees the bright lights of the city right out there in rural America saw his scheming con man’s paradise just ahead. That tension between the true believer and the con man is what drives the theme in the film, drives the religion as business aspect which Lewis and director Richard Brooks wanted to expose to the light of day.              

Naturally a professed con man like Elmer was able to work his way into the not so naïve Sister’s operation (she was ready to take on any who were ready to do the Lord’s work even if she had to hold both hands onto the dough). Began to preach his word as warm up to hers, a front man. As Elmer gathered in the flock, and as the crowds got bigger in the big tent he tried to get the good Sister to bring her act to the big city. Zenith in the film and book, big city by heartland standards, where George Babbitt and associates had to be won to allow the revival in town. Of course Babbitt was nothing but a relatively small-time capitalist looking, constantly looking for the main chance, and whose name from another Lewis book was in common usage among the 1920s intelligentsia as the epitome of the boob bourgeois. He was sold on the revival idea, saw some dough in bringing in the sheep, by good old boy Elmer.    

Of course getting to the big city meant having to deal with plenty of cynicism and gaffs about religion, about tent religion and that point of view was left to the person of Jim, played by Arthur Kennedy, the agnostic newspaper reporter for the Zenith Time who had been following the growth of Sister Falconer’s movement out in the small towns. He stirred up enough of a controversy with his views and articles that no one would doubt that he was the antithesis of what was going on under the tent.

Elmer eventually had good Jim on the ropes though, had a sense that out in heartland Zenith Jim’s views would not wash, especially a disbelieve that Jesus was the son of God. But you know that old sinner turned saint Elmer’s past would catch up to him even if had reformed under the good graces of Sister whom he was sincerely smitten with even if a little too lustily for revival tents. And that wicked past did catch up in the person of Lulu, played by Shirley Jones who also won an Oscar for her performance, whom Elmer had seduced and who had turned up in Zenith town in some Madame’s whorehouse. Turned up as a fallen prostitute who held Elmer’s fate in her hands. She by her own sleigh-of-hand con trapped and exposed Elmer’s past for the news prints. Had Sister’s operation on the ropes, had it effectively shut down by an irate and angry mob until she backed off, confessed she had duped Elmer into a false sex scene and the revival was back on top, again.               

In Lewis’ book and apparently in the film-maker’s mind letting Sister’s operation go on without something untoward happening was too much of a letdown in a situation where both were trying to expose the hold of religious hustlers on the crowd. Sister’s dream was to get off the road, get away from the hassles of big tent revivalism and have a regular church of her own right there in big city Zenith. Quite a step up for a gilr out of Shantytown. That idea was what drove her, what she was using her donations for (after the big expenses of a travelling show were deducted). She was finally, after getting back on her feet after Lulu’s expose and truth-telling, able to open the new church, the tabernacle. Except on service day one just as it looked like she was on easy street somebody flicked a butt into some inflammatory liquids and a destructive fire burned the place to the ground, taking the good Sister down with it. Elmer walked away a seemingly chastened man. Yes, watch this one even if you have read the book because the film takes a different tack, has different scenes not in the book. And yes repent, sinners, repent. But you knew that was coming.