Elmer Gantry

History repeats first as tragedy --- radio evangelism and the good, hard business sense of Christianity in the 1920s, but next the farce --- the co-opting of religion for political and financial purposes in the 21st Century. And, in both cases, railing at, to quote a fictional preacher, “Harvardism, Yaleism, and Princetonism.” The shadowy and evil elites, of course. Woops, throw in one more “ism,” Darwinism. It’s on repeat play now. And it was all seen clearly in 1926 by a guy named Sinclair Lewis. Who penned a novel that inspired a fantastic and illustrative film, 1960’s Elmer Gantry, from United Artists. The novel Gantry was so scandalous that it was, as the phrase goes, “banned in Boston.” It was incredibly popular nonetheless, but almost too hot to handle until the thawing of the Production Code for film in the 50s. At long last came Renaissance man Richard Brooks, to move Gantry forward as a project and into American theaters. 

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