This has been sitting on my shelf since before Christmas. I just haven't had the time or the energy to sit through a 2.5 hour movie, but I really needed to send it back so I could get some of the new Oscar nominees. This might have been a vastly different review if I hadn't just seen Hail, Satan?.Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) is a silver-tongued vacuum salesman during Prohibition. He can quote the Bible all day long to make a sale, charm the birds from the trees, and more than one lady from her skirts. When he meets Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons), a revivalist, he knows he's fallen in love at last. But his past is there to haunt him no matter how he runs from it.
There is an honest-to-God disclaimer at the beginning of this movie warning good Christian folk to not be horrified by the depictions therein. It is very preachy, for sure, with the skeptical atheist newspaper reporter (Arthur Kennedy) filling in for the villain when one is needed. In a different age, this might have been a cautionary tale about snake oil salesmen masquerading as preachers but Elmer Gantry is almost painfully earnest.
It is very well acted. Lancaster has never been my go-to leading man but he is extremely charming and affable here. Simmons isn't given quite as much to do other than switch randomly between wildly affectionate and cold-shouldered. Through modern eyes, Sister Sharon definitely gets short shrift, especially in the ending conflagration. She's essentially punished for refusing to give up a position intended only for men (preaching). The real standout of the film is Shirley Jones, the fallen woman and one-time victim of Gantry's charms. She takes what could have been a stereotype and makes a real role out of it.
I didn't hate it but it definitely wasn't my favorite film. It is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.
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