Elmer Gantry

The primary appeal, and it's significant, is watching Lancaster strut and preen and tear through his rich material like a famished lion. The scenes where he gets to thumb his bible are naturally showstoppers, but he excels in building the entire character, most notably the way he counters ever slight and insult with a deflective booming laugh, a sly but unmistakable signal that his adversaries can swing at him all they like, but he's impervious.

What worked here really worked: Lancaster is a scoundrel, but at the end, you truly feel bad for the man. Shirley Jones can act circles around some current actresses with the performance she pulled off here, conflicted but assured and manipulative with her sexuality. The ending takes too long to arrive, but when it does it's oblique enough to linger in your mind. I wish they still made films like this.

Burt Lancaster is an absolute powerhouse in this movie and I can't state that enough. It's a scathing take down of organized religion and evangelist hypocrisy that's just as relevant several decades later.

Superb adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' novel: a smooth-talking salesman becomes a tent-revival preacher, and is so good at it, that even we aren't quite sure where the pretense ends and the real man begins. Burt Lancaster is terrific as the brash Gantry; Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy, and Shirley Jones are equally superb; special kudos to Ed Andrews' Charlie Babbitt. Richard Brooks' direction and script burst with life and audacity; John Alton's cinematography is marvelous. A real treat throughout.

a tour de force performance by Lancaster.............

A plot you don't see much in films, especially anymore, and one that has more to say than it may appear [it just takes too long to get there]. Elevated by the talent. Lancaster really shows his versatility & an evocative score with suitable direction from Brooks.

This movie was just boring, not to mention that I tend to dislike overly religious people, but let's face it, these guys aren't very likable. This movie was not filmed/directed/acted/written or anything else in any way that made it above average, in fact, much of it was below average.

A somewhat dated and over-acted (under-directed?) film, not overly true to the book, that is still immensely enjoyable. Jean Simmons carried her Guys and Dolls Sister Sarah role to new heights, and Lancaster's patter seemed remarkably similar at times to Robert Preston's earlier Broadway appearance in The Music Man, but then, Preston might have been doing a parody on earlier Lancaster movies, or they both might have viewed tent-show revivalism through similar eyes.

Not bad.

A compelling study on faith and lack thereof, which relies on both humour and Lancaster as the eponymous lead. Not moralistic nor mocking, and there’s an ambivalence/ambiguity regarding the reading it seeks to evoke.

A good movie that I did not enjoy very much.

Lancaster totally commits and gives an over the top performance that really works. On the downside, the characters and story seems to develop semi-randomly so you are left wondering what the point or message was supposed to be.

I think these types of religious institutions are a scam (maybe they all are?). My low score is due to the fact that movies about this topic bore me, and the plot of this one in particular was as standard as it could be. The only exception was the acting. The performances of the two leads were excellent.

Lancaster is simply amazing here as an over-the-top salesman-turned-preacher, even with that terrible laugh. But the movie is too long and it feels like it's trying to decry all the injustices in the world while getting in a quickie love story (or two, or three). Is it satire or salvation when the formerly-empty-words message starts to take hold at the end?

Elmer Gantry's Laugh

Unusual drama with some excellent performances.

Viewed March 31, 2020.

This movie takes a stepback to throw one major punch.

I remembered this movie as blasting religion, but after rewatching it, I came away with a different interpretation. This time I saw Gantry as sincere but flawed, and it changed everything.

Burt Lancaster oozes charisma as a traveling salesman turned proselytizing phenom. Based on a ruthless Sinclair Lewis satire, ELMER GANTRY is at its best satirizing the American evangelical movement; even the modern viewer will find interesting parallels in the periodic religious "awakenings" that tend to sweep the nation, as Elmer says, "when people are poor, when they're afraid, before a war, after a war." Alas, it loses much of its bite when it must attempt to redeem its central hypocrite.

I'm not convinced that this is particularly insightful satire of organized religion, as it seems to pull punches for fear of inciting too much controversy, but it is a compelling story about the humbling and redemption of a selfish huckster. Great performances all around, especially Lancaster, who is given so much room to chew scenery but is also so perceptive about who this man is.

A blistering expose on the motives behind the revivals that went across the bible belts of America in the first half of the 20th Century. Burt Lancaster gives a wonderful high-energy performance as an alcoholic womanizer-turned street preacher - perfectly showcasing how pastors are as human and susceptible to hypocrisy as anyone. Then it all derails in a ludicrous final act with an over-the-top action packed climax. Still well made and performed, but the ending is a mess.

Other than the obviously dubbed singing, excellent.

But for Lancaster's electrifying performance I'd have ranked this a couple of tiers lower. Even though I knew he was a shady con-man lacking in moral completely for most of the film I still wanted him to succeed. it's an amazing performance and one I'll probably never forget. Simmons and Jones also deserve praise for their roles. The film though attempts to say a lot while not really saying much.

Mesmerizing tale.

Everyone was trying hard on this one, but few things are more boring than a message movie in which the message is both delivered with a sledgehammer and wrong. This is both anti-huckster and pro-God, which I'm sure was seen as controversial and daring in 1960, but is really a contradiction in terms. Lancaster is such an obvious phony that you wonder why anyone listens to him; Simmons is supposed to be moving but is wrongheaded and dull, just like everyone who tried to convert me in boyhood

I've got news for you: Shirley Jones is the reason to see THIS film!

It doesn't bear much resemblance to the Sinclair Lewis novel, but so much the better. As Anthony Minghella did to Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley, Richard Brooks has made the protagonist more sympathetic, and even tragic. This works to the film's benefit, and fine performances from Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons and Arthur Kennedy round out the bill. I could have done without the fiery ending, which seemed like a writer's last straw-grasp.

I appreciate what Brooks was going for with this, but by todays standards it seems unbearably tame to simply limit ones attack on religion to revivalist christianity. As the movie doesn't have much going for it visually, the sole interest herein for me was Lancaster, who was good here- not great. All in all, a disappointment.

Burt Lancaster is great

Burt Lancaster delivers his career topping performance in Richard Brooks' best film.

Score based on distant memory.