Elmer Gantry (film)

Elmer Gantry
theatrical poster
Directed by	Richard Brooks
Screenplay by	Richard Brooks
Based on	Elmer Gantry 1927 novel by Sinclair Lewis
Produced by	Bernard Smith
Starring	Burt Lancaster Jean Simmons Arthur Kennedy Shirley Jones Patti Page
Cinematography	John Alton
Edited by	Marjorie Fowler
Music by	André Previn
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	June 29, 1960 (1960-06-29)
Running time	146 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$3 million
Box office	$5.2 million (US/ Canada rentals)[1]

Elmer Gantry is a 1960 American drama film about a confidence man and a female evangelist selling religion to small-town America. Adapted by director Richard Brooks, the film is based on the 1927 novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis, and stars Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy, Shirley Jones and Patti Page.

Elmer Gantry was nominated for five Academy Awards in 1961, including Best Picture and Best Score. It won Best Actor for Lancaster, Best Supporting Actress for Jones, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Jean Simmons was nominated for the Golden Globe award in the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama category.

The film's plot overlaps with less than 100 pages of the novel Elmer Gantry, deleting many characters and fundamentally changing the character and actions of female evangelist Sister Sharon Falconer, as played by Simmons. The character of Sharon Falconer was loosely based on elements in the career of the Canadian-born American radio evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who founded the Pentecostal Christian denomination known as the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in 1927.^{[Note 1]} In addition, a plot point from the end of the novel is incorporated into Gantry and Lulu Bains's relationship, fundamentally changing the fates of both characters.

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