Elmer GANTRY (1960) Repost

Cast Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy, Dean Jagger, Shirley Jones, Patti Page, Edward Andrews, John McIntire, Hugh Marlowe, Joe Maross, Philip Ober

Elmer Gantry (Burt Lancaster), a drunken, dishonest street preacher allegedly patterned on Billy Sunday, wrangles a job with the travelling tent ministry conducted by Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons). Thanks to Gantry's enthusiastic hellfire-and-brimstone sermons, Sister Sharon's operation rises to fame and fortune, enough so that Sharon realizes her dream of building her own enormous tabernacle. These ambitions are put in jeopardy when a prostitute (Oscar-winning Shirley Jones), a former minister's daughter who'd been deflowered by Gantry years earlier, lures Gantry into a compromising situation and has photographs taken. It took several years for any Hollywood studio to take a chance with Sinclair Lewis' novel, and when it finally did arrive on the screen, producer/director Richard Brooks was compelled to downplay some of the more "sacrilegious" passages in the original. Also appearing in Elmer Gantry are Arthur Kennedy as an H.L. Mencken-style atheistic journalist, and Edward Andrews as George Babbitt, a character borrowed from another Sinclair Lewis novel.

Bel homme, opportuniste, immoral, le représentant de commerce Elmer Gantry est tout cela, et bien plus encore. Ainsi, lorsqu'il tombe par hasard sur la réunion d'un groupe de "Renouveau évangélique" et découvre qu'il peut se faire de l'argent aussi facilement que dans un saloon, Gantry se convertit à l'évangélisme. Rejoignant les rangs de Soeur Sharon Falconer, il livre des sermons éloquents contre le démon, qui lui valent gloire et fortune. Mais lorsqu'une ancienne maîtresse refait surface, Gantry doit affronter des démons d'un tout autre genre : des secrets inavouables, depuis longtemps enterrés, qui font de sa vie de "saint" un véritable enfer sur Terre…