Elmer Gantry (film)
| Elmer Gantry | |
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theatrical poster
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| Directed by | Richard Brooks |
| Produced by | Bernard Smith |
| Screenplay by | Richard Brooks |
| Based on |
Elmer Gantry 1927 novel by Sinclair Lewis |
| Starring |
Burt Lancaster Jean Simmons Arthur Kennedy Shirley Jones |
| Music by | André Previn |
| Cinematography | John Alton |
| Edited by | Marjorie Fowler |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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146 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3 million |
| Box office | $5.2 million (US/ Canada rentals) |
| Elmer Gantry | |
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| Soundtrack album by André Previn | |
| Released | August 25, 1998 |
| Label | Rykodisc |
Elmer Gantry is a 1960 drama film about a con man and a female evangelist selling religion to small town America. Adapted by director Richard Brooks, the film is based on the 1927 novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis and stars Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy and Shirley Jones.
Elmer Gantry was nominated for five Academy Awards in 1961, including Best Picture and Best Score. It won Best Actor for Lancaster, Best Supporting Actress for Jones, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The movie presents fewer than 100 pages of the novel Elmer Gantry, deleting many characters and fundamentally changing the character and actions of female evangelist, Sister Sharon Falconer, as played by Simmons. The character of Sharon Falconer was loosely based on elements in the career of the Canadian-born American radio evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who founded the Pentecostal Christian denomination known as the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 1927.
Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster) is a hard-drinking, fast-talking traveling salesman with a charismatic personality who infuses biblical passages and fervor into his pitches as a way to ease and collect money. He is drawn to the roadshow of Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons) and is immediately attracted to the saintly revivalist. As the troupe leaves town for Kansas, Gantry sweet talks her naive assistant, Sister Rachel (Patti Page), into telling him information regarding Falconer's past. He uses that information to con his way into Sister Sharon's good graces and joins the troupe preaching "Christ in commerce" and how he is a saved salesman.
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