Elmer Gantry

[historian]

Anyone see that film? Its quite scary because that type of thing is still going on, only now its some incoherent fat slob with a wax hairdo wearing a 3000 suit telling the audience to give give give while they wave their silly arms up in the sky chanting hossanah! I just hope the majority of those people dont vote.

[Malva Zebrina]

1. Yes, I remember that film

Burt Lancaster did a good job.

A more modern film that also is very good is "The Apostle" , with Robert Duval in the lead role.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. READ THE BOOK!!! Sinclair Lewis practically predicted * 80 years

before our mess. The movie combines Elmer Gantry and Babbit (another "must read!) and plays loose with the characters in the book in some cases but the message is still the same about trusting a charlatan talking "Jesus".

[supernova]

4. Sinclair Lewis!

Thank you! I couldn't remember the author.

Supernova <-- silly English Major with a brain fart. :silly:

[JanMichael]

5. Lewis also nailed the Fascists with "It Can't Happen Here"!!!

He's one of my favorite authors. Amazingly insightful novels about America.

[placton]

7. also read IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE

also by Lewis. Even though written in the 30s, it's most relevant today.

[supernova]

3. Wow, what an oldie!

I would enjoy see that again. Great music, I recall. Didn't Shirley Jones win an oscar for that?

I've been calling JF/PR Elmer Gantrys for quite some time now. It's amazing that people are so gullible still for a traveling medicine show.

Who wrote the book?

[flakey_foont]

6. Saw the Film

there used to be this gent on TV name Ernest Angley, I believe, and after the God Loves You/The Devil Hate You, I need money portion of the program, he would go down to the audience and heal the afflicted...like making the blind hear, and the deaf throw down their crutches, or something like that.......as a kid I remember thinking, first of all.......this is bull doodoo, and secondly,.. well, if he could really heal like that, why doesn't he go and spend a few hours a week at a local hospital where he could really do some good instead of bilking little old ladies out of what meagre savings they still had left