Reviews

Director: Richard Brooks Writers: Richard Brooks (screenplay), Sinclair Lewis (from the novel by) Cast: Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy Genre: Drama "A fast-talking traveling salesman with a charming, loquacious manner convinces a sincere evangelist that he can be an effective preacher ...

An Oscar nominee for Best Picture of 1960, Elmer Gantry is a riveting character study wrapped inside a sprawling and dramatic epic that tackles some very prickly subject matter like the validity of organized religion, religion for profit and how the lines can so quickly blur, the concept of religion...

The film's opening scene has Gantry (the overpowering, Oscar-winning Burt Lancaster), a drunken, womanizing traveling salesman, drinking it up on Christmas Eve with the boys in a speakeasy, but when a woman comes in asking for donations, Gantry remains in his salesman persona while pitching Jesus as...