Elmer Gantry (1960) on Netflix
Elmer Gantry sells goods from town to town and drinks between pitches. He talks his way into Sister Sharon Falconer's revival roadshow as a preacher, over her manager's doubts.
- Netflix3.6/5
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Trailer
Plot summary
Elmer Gantry is a fast-talking salesman who drinks and moves from town to town, slipping scripture into his sales patter because it helps him take in money. He meets the traveling revival show of Sister Sharon Falconer and is drawn to her. Through her assistant Sister Rachel he learns about Falconer's past and uses it to win a place in the troupe, preaching as a salesman who has been saved. On the platform the two work as a pair: he warns the crowd of Hell, she offers forgiveness. Their meetings draw the notice of church leaders in Zenith, Winnemac, a bigger city than the small towns Falconer's manager Bill Morgan prefers. Gantry tells the ministers that churches need members, and a show like theirs brings them in.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Elmer Gantry (1960)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Richard Brooks first wanted Montgomery Clift for the title role of Elmer Gantry and also considered James Cagney, but Burt Lancaster got the part, only after turning it down because he thought the original screenplay was too long and too detailed. Brooks then offered to rework the script and spent several months redrafting it with him.
- The revivalist Sister Sharon Falconer was loosely drawn from Aimee Semple McPherson, the Canadian-born American radio evangelist who founded the Pentecostal denomination the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 1927.
- Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh and Susan Hayward were all considered for the part of Sister Sharon Falconer before Jean Simmons won it; Simmons knew director Richard Brooks because her husband, Stewart Granger, had worked with him on The Light Touch and The Last Hunt.
- Shirley Jones was cast as Lulu Baines at Burt Lancaster's suggestion even though Richard Brooks was reluctant to hire her, since she was then known mainly for musicals and comedies. Jones said Brooks had originally wanted Piper Laurie for the part.
- Shirley Jones recalled that Richard Brooks gave her no direction at all on her first day on set, apologized the next day, and predicted she would win an Academy Award.
- The screenplay was altered to satisfy the Production Code after the censors complained that the original script had "no decent religious people" in it, a criticism Richard Brooks acknowledged; the final draft was approved in August 1959.
- Shirley Jones said Richard Brooks was harsh with the film's extras, describing how he would push someone aside and tell them to sit down and keep their mouth shut; she called him "mean, really mean".
- Richard Brooks wrote the first draft of the screenplay in 1958 aboard a cargo ship sailing from Los Angeles to Stockholm, taking with him a Gideon Bible, six volumes of H. L. Mencken's Prejudices and hundreds of articles on religion and evangelism for research.
