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Elmer Gantry (film)

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Elmer Gantry is a 1960 film about a con man and a female evangelist selling religion to small town America.

Directed and written by Richard Brooks, based on the 1927 novel by Sinclair Lewis.
If there was a dollar to be made - Gantry would make it... If there was a soul to be saved - Gantry would save it... (taglines)

Elmer Gantry

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  • You think, uh, religion is for suckers and easy marks and molly-coddlers, eh? You think Jesus was some kind of a sissy, hey? Well, let me tell you, Jesus wouldn't be afraid to walk into this joint or any other speakeasy to preach the gospel. Jesus had guts. He wasn't afraid of the whole Roman army. [Pointing to a picture] Think that quarterback's hot stuff? Well, let me tell you, Jesus would have made the best little All-American quarterback in the history of football. Jesus was a real fighter - the best little scrapper, pound for pound, you ever saw. And why, gentlemen? Love, gentlemen. Jesus had love in both fists! And what is love? Love is the mornin' and the evenin' star. It shines on the cradle of the Babe. Hear ye, sinners. Love is the inspiration of poets and philosophers. Love is the voice of music. I'm talkin' about divine love - not carnal love.
  • Sin. Sin, Sin. You're all sinners. You're all doomed to perdition. You're all goin' to the painful, stinkin', scaldin', everlastin' tortures of a fiery hell, created by God for sinners, unless, unless, unless you repent.
  • I have here in my pocket - and thank heaven you can't see them - lewd, dirty, obscene, and I'm ashamed to say this: French postcards. They were sold to me in front of your own innocent high school by a man with a black beard... a foreigner.
  • I was accosted by three painted women. Your streets are made unsafe by shameless, diseased hussies, rapacious pick-pockets, and insidious opium-smokers.
  • As long as I got a foot, I'll kick booze. And, as long as I got a fist, I'll punch it. And, as long as I got a tooth, I'll bite it. And, when I'm old and gray and toothless and bootless, I'll gum it till I go to heaven and booze goes to hell.

Lulu Bains

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  • Oh, he gave me special instructions back of the pulpit Christmas Eve. He got to howlin' "Repent! Repent!" and I got to moanin' "Save me! Save me!" and the first thing I know he rammed the fear of God into me so fast I never heard my old man's footsteps!

Other

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  • Sister Sharon Falconer: But tonight is a thousand years away.
  • George Babbitt: Besides, I'm for a free press, for free enterprise... and for whatever the hell the other freedoms are!
  • Lady in red on Christmas Eve: That's the trouble with this stinking world. Nobody loves nobody.
  • Clean-up man: Mister, I've been converted five times. Billy Sunday, Reverend Biederwolf, Gypsy Smith, and twice by Sister Falconer. I get terrible drunk, and then I get good and saved. Both of them done me a powerful lot of good - gettin' drunk and gettin' saved. Well, good night.

Dialogue

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Jim Lefferts: You look like a man who could use a drink.
Elmer Gantry: You know somethin', Jim? There oughta be a law against drinkin'.
Jim Lefferts: There is. Prohibition.
Elmer Gantry: That's against sellin', not drinkin'.
Jim Lefferts: Amen.

Taglines

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  • If there was a dollar to be made - Gantry would make it... If there was a soul to be saved - Gantry would save it...
  • "You're all sinners... You'll all burn in hell!"
  • Tell 'em, Gantry... save 'em from sin... lead 'em to salvation... tell 'em about everything - but not about your whiskey and your women!

Cast

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