Review of Elmer Gantry (1960) by Leighton T — 07 Jun 2011

This is a pretty solid old Hollywood satirical drama. It's adapted from a Sinclair Lewis novel, and tells the story of a dishonest huckster of a preacher named Elmer Gantry. It would probably seem a bit stodgy to audiences today, but apparently at the time the film was highly controversial, and you can see it definitely has some bite for a 1960 film.

In poor rural America in the 1920s, Elmer Gantry is a hard-drinking, none-too-ethical fellow who sees the chance for a career in preaching at religious revivals. Eventually he strikes up a working relationship with another preacher, Sister Sharon Falconer, who has a similar knack for preaching to crowds but seems much more sincere in her beliefs. The film deals with their relationship with each other and to their public.

Burt Lancaster, who won a Best Actor Oscar for the movie, is quite good as the slippery Gantry. Going through much of the film with an epically bad haircut and a plastered-on smile, Lancaster makes you see how Gantry is charming to the masses on a superficial level without actually buying any of his own nonsense. Jean Simmons also gives a really strong performance. She frequently gets to take center stage in a way that rarely happens for women in films today, let alone in 1960. The movie is at its best during the preaching sequences from either character. Shirley Jones, who won a Supporting Actress Oscar, is funny and tricky as a prostitute whose services Gantry used to indulge in.

I guess my main criticism of the film would be that it's rather slow-moving and, at 2 hours and 25 minutes, a good bit too long for the amount of story it has to tell. But, to some extent, that is just my hyper-active contemporary sensibility talking. People in 1960 likely would have found the movie less slow. Visually, it's like many other films of its era - Technicolor, with most shots being held at a distance. We're used to more close-ups these days, so films like this tend to feel less emotionally involving now. If you're a fan of the pre-1967 Hollywood style, though, this is a very good example of it, with strong performances and a healthy cynicism about revivalist preaching.