I agree with the posters who say Jean Simmons should have gotten an Oscar for her performance as Sharon Falconer. There's a lot about Sharon I want to write, but I can't find the right words. So I ask you, fellow posters, how do you see Sharon in the realm of tragic screen heroines?
shareShe seems so sincere all the way through, but the way she chooses to become a martyr makes her circumstance a little less tragic than some other characters who really are victims of fate and are more pitiable.
I think the last couple scenes of the film are an injustice to the characters and don't seem to fit in with the direction the film was headed. Why was the scene with Sharon arriving at Lulu's room so truncated? There should have been some confrontation, some sort of exchange; as a viewer I felt robbed.
Yes, Simmons should have gotten recognized by the Academy for certain. And I think she would have if her final scene were more of a definitive cinematic moment.
"Well, for once the rich white man is in control!" C. M. Burns
The truncated feel of the scenes could have come the power that the censors still had at that time. This was a very, very adult movie for the time. It may be that there were cuts in the script prior to filming or the scenes were edited due to censorship after shooting. The other possibility is that a full print of the film may be hard to come by. Over the years many prints that were used in broadcast on tv ended up getting savaged. Elmer Gantry most surely needs to be re-mastered like other classics.
shareI think she has to be crazy to pick screwy religion over a sexy man.
shareNot to take anything away from Jean Simmons' performance, but in her final moments, Sister Sharon was absolutely stupid ("Come back! You must have faith!").
Even Billy Graham would have tried to escape a burning building, f'cryin' out loud!
And poor Elmer Gantry, he would have been better off with the whore. So what's the moral of the story? Don't fall in love with women who are crazy religious nuts. No good will come of it.
shareMy personal assessment of Sharon Falconer? That she (Jean Simmons) was HOT. When she first came on he scene in that fitted blue bustier Milkmaid getup, I was spellbound like Elmer.
shareThis is one of the rare movies that is better than the book. The book went into much more detail, and the Sharon part was only a small portion of the book. But strangely, Sharon is a much more interesting character in the movie. In the book, she was supposed to be modeled after Aimee Semple McPherson, and she is portrayed as a knowing fraud, and as a rather crazy proto-feminist. She dies in the fire because she is too proud to leave.
What I saw of her in the movie is someone who truly believed. Of course, her belief was not entirely simple. She also liked the fact that her ministry took her from being Katie Jones from Shantytown to being Sister Sharon Falconer. At the end, she really gets caught up in her own belief, and is like a captain going down with a ship. I was left shocked and saddened by her death in the film, largely indifferent in the book. She was just a crazy person who got herself killed by being crazy.
What I liked most about the movie is that again, the characters were deeper and more interesting than in the movie. The book was largely a critique of religion. In the movie, the characters are not crazy people or frauds, but people with mixed motives and mixed intentions. They are often sincere, but sometimes fraudulent. Just like real people.
Dear Spam,
I could not agree with you more. Richard Brooks' screenplay and movie are much more sophisticated that the Lewis novel (even though he won the Nobel Prize and Brooks only won the Academy Award). They are NOT simple frauds but are given the spiritual depth that such figures in modern life genuinely have.
Frank
It was a wonderful role for the luminous Jean Simmons, and she was, as usual, superb in it.
But you ARE Blanche ... and I AM.
The ending really swerved me. Throughout the rest of the film I thought she was a mostly genuine preacher who was honest about her beliefs. Then that healing sequence put every thought I had about her into doubt. And allowing herself to be burnt up in the fire? Maybe she was a zealot all along. And a dishonest zealot at that.
I was hoping that Sinclair went into greater detail about her motives in the novel but if other posters are correct in that the film did a better job with that than the novel then I won't bother reading it.
I think that seeming to heal the man's deafness was her downfall. She actually believed that God was working through her then and that she wouldn't be harmed in the fire because God would protect her. Elmer recognized that she was being sucked in when he asked her to give it all up and run away with him.
I think it was a tragic but good ending. Elmer lands on his feet and quotes the Bible. From that verse you know that he is all over the religion business but, never fear, there are many other scams he can play.
She is only tragic to me because she invented a persona for the people. Even she was afraid no one would listen to a common person. So I wonder if she heard all of the message. At first, I expected her to be above a secular life. But she had the common sense to know how to get what she wanted. The scene where she describes her female benefactors wasn't very nice. It seemed to tarnish and make her more fragile to me. Fragile in that it's no different than what men do, belittle and make weaker, as if you are not on equal footing. And then she fell in love, adding another layer to the persona. The more layers, the more I saw her as a messenger. But at the end I saw the makings of a Disciple. So did she see the error of her ways and start over? Giving up what she needed most (at the time) Elmer, and dedicate her life to her faith. Or did she give up completely, confused by the messages-a shooting star, the faith healing, and the fire. I saw the star as a choice to be made. I don't think she died, since they didn't find a body. But I'm not sure what road to took.
If we can save humanity, we become the caretakers of the world