Elmer Gantry

I think that there are some rather odd parts, mostly having to do with the reporter. It is clear that the reporter is the moral centre of the film; he sees right through the baloney of the revival movement, but at the same time, he is revealed to be ethical about other things as well. When Elmer Gantry is about to be blackmailed, the reporter, who could have easily gotten the scoop that would ruin Gantry's career, will have none of it. In fact, he helps out the people whom he denounced earlier in his newspaper - I wonder if it's a secular version of loving the sinner but not the sin; the reporter helps these "sinners" out, because what is being done to them is just as great a sin as what these revivalists do. I say that these parts are odd, because I expected the main characters to just be totally trashed, and the reporter seems like the guy who could do that, but he doesn't. I read a review that said the viewer was totally disappointed that the film didn't go all the way and slaughter these religious crooks. I say that the fact this film even dared to show the reality of the revivalists is strong enough, and that sometimes utter revulsion for your subject doesn't always work.

Elmer Gantry is a well-done melodrama. It does not completely trash the people involved in these revivalist groups, of course (there is some redemption, after all), but the movie shows us a rare glimpse of what goes on in front of and behind the scenes of a shady side of a religious movement that came to its fruition in the form of all those tele-evangelists who, to be honest, make Elmer Gantry look like a sober, thoughtful preacher and a fairly moral man.

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