Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

grantss Good drama that had the potential to be one of the greats.The setup for this movie was interesting, and made you think there was a clear, focused message coming as some stage. The movie was set up to rail against religion as a business, how some people use religion for their own ends, and how easily people can be manipulated in the name of religion. There was also an opportunity to look at the influence of the media.However, from a point the movie lost focus. The snake-oil salesman turned out to have redeeming qualities, turns out religious organisations can do some good, the bs-printing newspaper printed the truth for once...It's as if the writer and director pulled their punches. Rather than a damning expose of certain religious organisations, it is a story of a man, a man with good and bad qualities. No particular message in the end, and very disappointing in that respect.Still made for an interesting story, just not anywhere near as brilliant as it could have been.Mesmerizing, powerful performance by Burt Lancaster in the lead role. There's a fine line between powerful acting and over-acting. Lancaster comes close on several occasions, but doesn't cross it. He well deserved his Best Actor Oscar.Solid support from Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy and Shirley Jones. Jones won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Lulu Bains. Not sure it was THAT good a performance, but she sure did look good delivering it...

Bento de Espinosa I'm a huge fan of Burt Lancaster. He was one the best actors, for me maybe even the best one. But his Oscar performance here is just way over the top.The movie is too long, didn't age well and seems to go nowhere. The big mistake is that warning at the beginning. It confused me, and probably others too, because it's clearly pro-Christianity and against revivalists, but then it doesn't decide if Elmer is a conman or a good man. Did he believe what he was preaching or was he only acting? If acting, what for? Just for the love of the evangelist woman?! For money? The movie never decides what kind of person Elmer actually is.A crowd comes to the tend to disturb the service, but when the evangelist woman starts to pray they all instantly get on their knees and pray with her, forgetting that they went there to mock her. She even healed a man, but we don't know if the movie shows this as something good or evil.And then there is this reporter, who is an atheist, and yet he goes to every sermon and is fascinated by the evangelist woman. He also never really draws a line.I really wanted to like this movie but its woolly message makes it weak.

tieman64 Burt Lancaster acted in a number of excellent films during the late 1950s and early 1960s. "Elmer Gantry", directed by Richard Brooks, is one of his best.Set in the early 1920s, the film stars Lancaster as Elmer Gantry, a fast talking charlatan and con man who uses his seductive tongue to weasel his way into the church of Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons), a Christian fundamentalist and female evangelist. Together the duo travel from town to town, setting up massive revival tents and seducing thousands upon thousands of believers.At its best, "Elmer Gantry" draws parallels between the words of business, entertainment and organised religion. In Brooks' hands, the church's foot-soldiers are more hucksters and crafty salesmen than men and women of God. They're selling a product, tailoring their pitches and pep talks to the wants and needs of the people, and even actively manufacturing desires, phobias and neuroses. Lancaster's character is himself a creepy sales machine who always knows exactly which screws to turn. His product? Himself. Ego-maniacal and craving attention, Gantry will do anything to be at the head of a pulpit.Burt Lancaster has often been accused of overacting. His character in "Elmer Gantry" is admittedly bombastic and exuberant, but fittingly so. Like an advertising executive on caffene, Gantry is a man of wild gestures and big promises, though there is subtlety and truth in the way Lancaster sculpts Gantry's smiles and the edges of Gantry's eyes. Gantry's facial features are hard, forced and false, all an act designed to seduce. Think of him as a precursor to Paul Thomas Anderson's Daniel Plainview (based on a 1927 Upton Sinclair novel)."Elmer Gantry" was itself based on less than 100 pages from an ahead-of-its-time novel by Sinclair Lewis (released in 1926). But where Lewis is satirical, edgy, angry, funny and resolutely anti-Christian, Brooks' film is kinder, gentler, ambiguous and scared of offending Christian audiences. Is Brooks' Gantry a believer? It seems so, despite his motivations. Do miracles happen within the film, thereby proving the existence of Christ? Again, it seems so, though the film is ambiguous enough to also suggest the exact opposite. Lewis' stance may have been too militant, even for the supposedly "progressive" 1960s; just another example of how timid cinema can be.Still, as a watered-down critique of fundamentalism, and even religion in a broader sense, the film works well. It's most sympathetic character is an atheist journalist, played by the great, underrated Arthur Kennedy. Kennedy's character sees through everyone's shams, but empathises with them nevertheless. A key scene involves him writing a newspaper article which shocks readers. Gantry and Falconer are hucksters and racketeers, he writes, selling superficialities in a world in which well-meaning intentions, religion and social goods offer no resistance to vices or social evil. Kennedy's readers support him, until the fast talking Elmer Gantry once again shifts popular opinion. Rather than change people, religion tends to force man to compartmentalise, repress or engage in wanton denial.The film missteps in its final act, with a fire-and-brimstone climax and an ending which is arguably too sympathetic toward Gantry. Better to portray him as a snake. A wolf in sheep's clothing. Brooks, though, has Gantry redeemed. He's just another soldier answering God's call. The film's best scene? Gantry stepping into an African American church and singing "I'm On My Way To Canaan's Land". The sequence is brilliant, Gantry's words like a threat, his tongue like the tool of Satan.8.5/10 - Richard Brooks is not well known today, but he directed a number of very good films (think of him as another John Huston). "Elmer Gantry" is one of his best. Worth one viewing.

classicsoncall I love it when the hucksters get their comeuppance, and as the title character Elmer Gantry, Burt Lancaster takes it to the shysters and con-men in all his flamboyant glory. The picture launches a direct broadside against the revival movement of the 1920's and those who would 'be the first to shake 'em up Jesus'. Lancaster is appealingly effective in his role as con-man, hustler, liar, thief and clown, a crude and vulgar show-off according to William Morgan (Dean Jagger). A single glance at revivalist preacher Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) and Gantry insinuates himself into her congregation as the wayward messenger, a step up from bar room philosopher and itinerant alcoholic and womanizer.With present day progressives firmly entrenched in their war on Christianity and organized religion, it's interesting to take this half century step back in time and see how that era took it's unsubtle mocking of fundamentalism mainstream. There's a dichotomy though, Sister Falconer is genuinely entrenched in her faith and dreams of her own church one day. Gantry initially views her as simply another one of his romantic conquests, but is sharp enough to realize that the traveling religious sideshow can be a profitable business in it's own right. Preacher Gantry has the true believers swooning in their seats and the local churchmen eager and ready to capitalize on the resurgence of their congregations. Why is it that Edward Andrews is always the perfect choice for a character like George Babbitt? He can do them in his sleep.I first saw this film many years ago when the only television broadcast availability was in black and white, and I can't help think that the story might have been more effective if made in that format. The characters here had just too many shades of gray to be conveyed otherwise. You know, I just had a thought. Instead of colorizing old films, how about taking ones like this and redoing them in glorious black and white. "Elmer Gantry" would be a perfect candidate.