Elmer Gantry

In the mid-1920s, Elmer Gantry is a hard-living, smooth-talking traveling salesman who often uses Christian references in his sales pitches to his largely Christian clients. In his travels he comes across the traveling revival show of evangelist Sister Sharon Falconer. He is immediately attracted to her and also sees her revival meetings as a way to make money. Using his sales techniques, especially on one of Sister Sharon's underlings, the naive Sister Rachel, Elmer is able infiltrate her entourage. He becomes the symbiotic antithesis to Sister Sharon: while he tells of heading toward the depths of hell for his many sins, she tells of being saved from that fate if repentance is forthcoming. Elmer's presence is against the wishes of Sister Sharon's manager, William Morgan, who sees through Elmer's smooth-talking veneer, although he can't argue with the bottom line that Elmer brings to the meetings. Traveling with the show is Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Jim Lefferts, who looks at the show and Elmer with a critical eye, although Sister Sharon, William, and Elmer welcome him. William's business plan has been for the show to set up in small towns, so it's against his wishes that Sister Sharon, falling for Elmer, agrees to Elmer's plan to set up in the larger city of Zenith, where William feels the that the scrutiny of the cynical urban populace will hurt their brand. But it's Elmer's past, which catches up with him in Zenith, that may be his, and by association Sister Sharon's, downfall.