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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lancaster's Oscar Role, March 5, 2002
This was Burt Lancaster's Oscar winner, a film in which the great performer achieved a Best Actor statuette for, according to those who knew him from his East Harlem days, largely playing himself. The fast talking Elmer Gantry, the colorful lead of the film of the same name, uses his gift of gab to get him by in what the Bible pounding revivalist recognizes is a tough world. When the film was released Lancaster reportedly heard from friends during his New York youth that he had not seen in years, who recalled the youthful Lancaster's gift of gab, which had become a neighborhood staple.Lancaster, along with the film's producer-director-writer Richard Brooks, recognized the cinematic potential of the Prohibition era novel by America's first Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Minnesotan Sinclair Lewis. Gantry alternates as a poker playing, whisky drinking, brawling brothel habitue and a stern-faced preacher extolling the masses in packed tent services to toe the mark for the Lord or face the fires of hell. Lancaster and Brooks spent six months in the director's office hashing out the story, two emotional creative forces hellbent on achieving the major success which resulted. The effort earned a Best Screenplay Oscar for Brooks. The story that was put on the screen in the 1960 classic involved non-stop action and biting irony, along with a needed touch of humor to lighten the story's heavy impact. Lancaster's transitory existence is revealed in the first scene of the film, when he barely escapes with his life after being attacked by a group of hobos in the box car of a train on which he is riding. It is not long after that when Lancaster steps into a church and hears a sermon from the beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer, played by the woman who would soon become director Brooks' wife, Jean Simmons. His sights set on the comely brunette, Lancaster demonstrates his cunning wiles by using Patty Paige, who has a crush on him, to get better acquainted with Simmons. While Paige was clearly impressed as well as smitten with the fast talking Gantry, Dean Jaggers, Simmons' partner in the traveling evangelical enterprise, believes that the itinerant preacher's methods are disgusting. This is not the kind of Christianity which Jaggers, a more cerebral type than the earthy Gantry, seeks to promote. One of the pivotal dialogue lines of the film comes after Jagger openly expresses his disgust with Gantry. "You're better than the people," Lancaster explains. "I am the people!" After Gantry becomes a hit, drawing big crowds, he is brutally sideswiped by his past in the form of Shirley Jones, a prostitute and ex-girlfriend of the fast living preacher. He is set up by unsavory associates of Jones', after which a graphic account of his association with her appears in the local newspaper. Jones secured a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role. When Gantry is physically attacked during a tent service, local reporter Arthur Kennedy, the town agnostic, comes to his defense and throws punches at the preacher's antagonists. Kennedy is impressed by Gantry's air of bravado. Lancaster also likes Kennedy and the two men share whiskey, smoke cigars, and swap racy stories. The film ends on a tragic note with a tent fire and the ensuing death of Simmons. The fire sequence is compelling, reminiscent of such great fire scenes as those in two thirties' films, "Gone With The Wind" and "In Old Chicago." Elmer Gantry is one of the most fascinating figures ever to appear on screen. While his alcohol swilling, brothel visiting, risque story telling side reeks of hypocrisy, it is also plain to see that he believes in the salvation he preaches in the most emotional terms. At bottom, he is human and a possessor of human frailties, less than what he in sober moments realizes he ought to be, but willing to do what it takes to preach the message he feels compelled to deliver. At one point he blackmails one of the city's leading landlords, George F. Babbit, the primary character of the hugely successful novel by Lewis, "Babbit," to donate money to put Sistern Sharon and her group on radio after informing him that he knows he is renting out buildings to prostitution operators to carry out their trade.
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DVD ~ Burt Lancaster
DVD ~ Burt Lancaster
DVD ~ Burt Lancaster
DVD ~ Burt Lancaster
by Sinclair Lewis
