When composing the canon of great American films, there is one in particular that occupies a very strange space – Elmer Gantry is a film mostly remembered for the dynamic performance given by Burt Lancaster, who was already one of the industry’s most interesting leading actors, and very little else. Richard Brooks was a filmmaker who was undeniably hit-and-miss – he hit some incredible heights, but also demonstrated an inability to work with material that wasn’t quite within his depths, especially when directing his own scripts, which were often based off previously-published material, making the relative failure of films like Lord Jim and Sweet Bird of Youth such overwrought, misguided works. Elmer Gantry is mercifully one of his more successful projects, albeit one that doesn’t have much cultural cache outside of the acclaimed performances given by Lancaster and his co-stars, particularly Shirley Jones and Jean Simmons (all of which received enough adulation to justify this as highlights of their careers), a result of the film coming at a time when so many of these stories, which took notable moments in American history and repurposed them as moral fables that correlated to more contemporary issues at the time. It’s a perfectly entertaining film, and there are a few segments that are amongst the best ever done by both the actors and the director – but it just doesn’t feel essential in the same way that some other films produced during this period have. Yet, if we look beneath the more superficial aspects, and pay attention to some of the more interesting sides of this film – the performances, the writing (particularly in how Brooks blends comedy and tragedy) and the general sense of disconcerting malice that pervades throughout, we can see how Elmer Gantry is far more than what it appears to be on the surface – and when we put everything else aside, we’re presented with a raw, harrowing demonstration of human desperation, so when this film hits its stride, it’s almost unstoppable, which is precisely why it deserves a reevaluation outside of its reputation as a relic of a bygone era.

The problem that comes with Elmer Gantry isn’t that it’s not a good film – indeed it has moments of revelatory brilliance, hitting a peak very few films have been able to reach without laborious effort – it’s that it was made at the wrong time. The original novel by Sinclair Lewis is a scathing commentary on 1920s culture, occurring midway between the end of the Prohibition era and the dawn of the Great Depression, playing on the intersections between faith and socio-political matters that have always been in conflict, particularly in times of great economic upheaval. The 1960s was not necessarily a bad time to tell some of these stories, but a film that preached a return to a kind of puritanical system of values, in an era that still stood in the shadow of McCarthyism and other recesses of the Cold War, which had essentially dismantled the American Dream as a target and more of a burden for those who sought it out, realizing it wasn’t all it was proposed as being. Brooks definitely had the right idea with Elmer Gantry, but only the lack of foresight to realize that it was occurring in a period where many filmmakers, including one of the most iconoclastic artists of their generation, were scrambling to make bold American epics that merged the past with the present, infusing socially-charged commentary into every frame. Elmer Gantry isn’t wasn’t immune to this at all either – but coming from someone who already struggled with finding the right balance between realism and sensationalism, it’s not surprising that the film hasn’t stood the test of time in the way others from this period have. It may be cheap to blame this on factors that were essentially out of the film’s control, but it does make for quite a disappointing experience, not because this film doesn’t have value, but rather because it just hasn’t found the audience that it deserves in the decades succeeding its release.

Ultimately, without Burt Lancaster, Elmer Gantry would most likely not have been nearly as successful, or even remembered at all. An actor perpetually in conflict with his characters, be brought a raw, rugged masculinity to the screen, which was promptly complemented by a cerebral charm that allowed him to play nearly any character, even if some of his performances tend towards being less-effective than others. He’s an actor who hit incredibly high peaks throughout his career, it’s difficult to pin down precisely where he was at his best. Ultimately, I don’t think Elmer Gantry is a true contender for this position, since Lancaster showed himself to be so much better than this – but it’s certainly one of the most compelling demonstrations of what he could do as an actor. The film doesn’t rely on him too much, despite being named after him, and thus there are moments where he is far too subdued – but there are even more where he is truly electrifying, particularly in the first act of Elmer Gantry, where the titular character is a well-meaning salesman with a knack for convincing others, and the final act, where he fully succumbs to his socially-mediated madness, garnered from becoming a public figure who thrived on criticism almost as much as he did the resounding calls of his followers. Lancaster is fantastic in the film, and while the film may grow slightly disinterested in Gantry towards the middle (when it is prioritizing the narratives of co-leads Jean Simmons and Shirley Jones, both of which are very good but fail to match Lancaster in any conceivable way), it does give the actor the chance to showcase his unique talents in a way that is extremely compelling, and shows how he could play both a hero and a villain at the exact same moment – Lancaster is almost playing an evangelistic version of Jekyll and Hyde, a man torn apart by his own inner demons, to the point where he is almost two distinct people altogether. He’s very convincing, and the film understands this entirely, particularly towards the end, where the story really makes its most potent commentary.

Despite it’s setting (both in terms of the era and its location throughout the Southern States of America), Elmer Gantry is an oddly resonant piece, and it carries a kind of relevance that wasn’t only significant at the time in which it was made (considering the socio-cultural context in which Brooks produced it), but also to the current day, being one of the rare films that speaks to modern issues without even realizing it. Not necessarily the definitive word on any of these ideas, but rather a bold look into a set of themes that are all by absent in today’s society, there’s a great deal of value that can come from looking into Elmer Gantry and how it balances the historical and literary basis with a more cutthroat, sardonic edge that can rival any modern day satire. In an era that is obsessed with celebrity culture, and where absolutely anyone can become famous simply by virtue of spreading their ideologies across any form of social media, a film like Elmer Gantry touches on a raw nerve that makes it immediately relevant to contemporary issues. The story of a penniless salesman using his “gift of the gab” to not only make money, but earn legions of followers who hang onto every word he says, is far less speculative than we’d expect – we’ve seen enormous personalities rise to the top of the cultural consciousness simply because they found a way to capitalize on certain aspects of the modern zeitgeist, speaking directly to the issues that plague the public and advocating against these issues, winning praise and respect without much effort. This is a stark and unforgiving film that gradually loses its rugged Southern charm, and becomes akin to a psychological thriller, with the main character’s gradual descent into insanity, driven by his own vanity and realization that he is infallible, being far too familiar in the age of televangelism, social media influencers and even the occasional cult leader, all of which can be found in the fabric of this film. It’s not necessarily a prophetic film, since history has shown us many examples of the select few who manage to convince the world  to wholeheartedly respect them and their ideologies, but one that does effectively encapsulate everything about these individuals that make them both compelling and entirely frightening.

However, Elmer Gantry isn’t entirely scathing, despite its clear disdain for the lifestyle of the people it focuses on – it finds the humanity in some very despicable characters, and while this may not be ideal for those seeking out a brutal deconstruction of the various industries built on the cult of personality, it functions in the context of the film, and turns it into a very effective work on its own, even when it could’ve done so much more. Perhaps the most notable flaw with this film is that Brooks took the wrong tone – Lewis’ original novel is well-known as a darkly comical satire, eviscerating the principles of revivalism and everything that their followers held dear to them, and treated with the same sacrosanct respect as the gospels they so closely adhered to. Brooks’ version does have some slight smatterings of this perverted sense of humour, but it is executed as a straight drama for the main part, losing much of the insidious dark comedy that helped expose the unimpeachable truths that are maintained so strongly, even by modern standards. Tonally, Elmer Gantry is quite wide-ranging, and whether this was intentional or not, it gives it a certain sense of misdirection, leading the audience to change our perspective quite consistently, never quite knowing what to expect from a  story that could venture into any direction and still be convincing. Going from upbeat comedy, to bleak Southern melodrama, and then ending on a note of complete nihilistic despair, the film touches on many different genres, but not to the point where it is all that distracting. By the end of this narrative, we’ve endured something quite challenging, and in its final few scenes, where Elmer Gantry reaches a poignant, but absolutely terrifying, emotional crescendo that will shock even the most cynical viewers, the film ventures towards something a lot deeper than what we’d imagine at the outset.

Brooks was not a filmmaker whose style necessarily facilitated flawless storytelling, but when it comes to making a solid and entertaining drama, he was quite good at what he did. Elmer Gantry is a film that falls just short of being a classic, which is more a testament to the fact that this is a solid, but unremarkable, piece of filmmaking that has a lot of promise, but not enough self-awareness to be sufficiently transparent in making its intentions clear, which is one of the fundamental qualities needed to push this film to a much higher status. It is very conventional for the most part, built on old-fashioned morality, which means that it has moments of brilliance, but mainly stays close to what we’d expect from a film like this, both in the story it tells and how it functions. Subverting traditions isn’t always easy, and Brooks does his best to both adapt the original novel and explore its message, while still infusing the film with the sense of urgency that it seemed to be aiming towards. Honestly, whether or not Elmer Gantry is successful is entirely subjective – considering this is a film focused squarely on religion, one’s individual relationship with the message is imperative to determining how we understand what Brooks is saying (and he does exceptionally well in leaving the most challenging conversations open to interpretation, which is another merit of this film that doesn’t get mentioned enough). Ultimately, Elmer Gantry is a tremendously entertaining film, a complex social drama that has a great sense of energy and a lot to say – it deserves another look from modern audiences, not because it wasn’t well-received at the time, or because its some obscure gem, but rather due to the fact that there is a lot to be discussed, and considering how intrepid it can be at times when traversing some very sensitive material, Elmer Gantry is certainly worth the time to revisit.