so,this passes for a classic?

Opinions are what make us human. I like it for many reasons. I can also understand that it seems over the top and cartoonish. I'm not sure what revivalism of the 20s was really like. To me this movie is both dated and current, both a caricature and yet real. I can see that some of the staging, acting, style, ideas seem dated and cartoonish, but so much of the true meanings, what is true faith, how do you grow churches, how much should we believe and what is the place of doubt, etc. are still so relevant and probing.

You have to ask yourself what you're looking for in a movie.

I thought this was fantastic. Even just 20 minutes in I was audibly telling myself how great it was. Burt Lancaster's character seems realistic, to say the least. A person blessed with a sharp tongue and a quick wit who genuinely believes in a god and his earthly and ethereal powers yet lives and gives in to temptation just as any other "child of god."
You have another woman whose only sin before meeting Elmer is having gone to the length of creating an entire character for herself that she can tell herself is completely pure, and innocent, only to put this vision on display in the hopes of creating hope for other Christians or revivalists or what have you (not too damnable in the great scheme of things).
You throw these two people together and you have the extreme hot and cold that can create a hurricane of destruction, and that's exactly what happens here - albeit through some good old fashioned symbolism.
I liked it so much, I was beginning to tell myself that a premium channel like HBO would do well to make this into a series (especially after I'd read on this forum that the movie ends about halfway into the book).