Elmer Gantry
A smooth-talking con man teams up with a fiery evangelist to exploit small-town America with fraudulent revival meetings, but his growing ambition and her unwavering faith threaten to destroy them both.
“If there was a dollar to be made—Gantry would make it … If there was a soul to be saved—Gantry would save it …”
Synopsis
A charismatic charlatan begins a business—and eventually romantic—relationship with a roadside evangelist to sell religion to 1920s America. Based on Sinclair Lewis.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 18
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Marjorie FowlerShot by John AltonScored by Andre Previn
Box Office
1960 · Box office
✅ Made its money back — grossed 3.5× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$10.4M
Also known as
- Elmer Gantry - Gott ist im Geschäftde
- Il figlio di Giudait
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Cast & Crew
18 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Burt Lancaster
as Elmer Gantry
Jean Simmons
as Sister Sharon Falconer
Arthur Kennedy
as Jim Lefferts
Dean Jagger
as William L. Morgan
Shirley Jones
as Lulu Bains
Patti Page
as Sister Rachel
Edward Andrews
as George F. Babbitt
John Mcintire
as Rev. John Pengilly
Hugh Marlowe
as Rev. Philip Garrison
Joe Maross
as Pete
Rex Ingram Director
as as Preacher of Black Congregation (uncredited)
Directors
2Writers
3Producers
1Other crew
3Parents Guide
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