1960: Elmer Gantry

Screenplay by Richard Brooks
Adapted from the novel Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis

The title character is an ambitious and hypocritical preacher who rises to fame and power with a golden tongue, saving souls in public while ruining lives in private.

I am utterly fascinated by this adaptation. I can practically hear the screenwriter's pitch: "Yes, I know the story seems like a blatant, satirical attack on Christianity in America, and obviously no one wants that, but what if in the movie...we were only attacking revivals?" Even if Richard Brooks never actually said that, that's pretty much what it boils down to. In both versions, Elmer was studying to be a minister when he was kicked out of school, but in the book it was after he was ordained. In both versions, Elmer serves as an evangelist with Sharon Falconer, but, though she leaves his life in the same way, what he does next is completely different. The book shows him rising through the ranks of the Methodist church; the movie just ends there with him giving up evangelism. Book Elmer serves many churches; film Elmer only serves Sharon Falconer's revivals. Though Sharon does have a significant impact on Elmer's life in the book, they're only together for a relatively brief period of time, whereas she's in most of the movie. The film also adds several lines of characters wondering why people need revivals when they can just go to church; in other words, it distances churches from people like Elmer Gantry. Granted, the film does show a bit of hypocrisy on the part of other, more traditional ministers, but this is very slight compared to the book.

Then there's the character of Jim Lefferts. In the book, he's Elmer's college friend, a self-proclaimed atheist who walks out of his life when Elmer decides to pursue a career in ministry. In the movie, he's a skeptic reporter who follows Elmer and Sharon around, and at first tries to make them look bad, but later becomes more of an ally. The Jim of the movie never says he's an atheist, and interestingly, loses an argument with Elmer because he can't decide whether or not he believes that Jesus was divine. In both versions, Jim is one of the least hypocritical characters, but in the book he's firmly anti-Christianity, whereas in the movie, while he isn't exactly a Christian, he isn't exactly not a Christian either. The film is careful not to portray atheism in too positive of a light. Elmer even has a line when he's criticizing Jim in which he accuses him of blindly following several atheistic writers, and he includes Sinclair Lewis. I couldn't quite decide if this was a joking or serious attempt to distance the film from the original material, but I enjoyed it either way.

While most of the significant changes seem to serve the purpose of becoming more palatable to a Christian audience, the film also makes several fascinating changes to the way women and sex are portrayed. In both versions, Elmer is a major womanizer. The first time this really gets him into trouble is when he is still a student preacher and falls for a deacon's daughter named Lulu. In the book, they have a thing for a while, but then he gets annoyed with her, and she really wants him to marry her (she even tries to convince him she's pregnant at one point). Someone sees them together, which kind of forces Elmer to propose, but he manages to push her towards this other guy and arrange it so that people find them together and she ends up having to marry him instead. Then, much later, when Elmer is married to somebody else whom he doesn't even like (who doesn't exist in the movie), Lulu comes back into his life, and they have an affair for a while until he gets tired of her and meets someone else. Unfortunately for him, that someone else is setting him up so she can blackmail him later. In the movie, on the other hand, Elmer is kicked out of school for being caught having sex with Lulu in the church (in the book he was kicked out for an unrelated reason). Instead of being forced to marry someone else, movie Lulu becomes a prostitute, who comes back into Elmer's life when he's trying to eliminate vice from the city (which is also something that happens in the book, but Lulu is not involved). Then Lulu is the one who tries to blackmail him, but she has a change of heart when she realizes she's still in love with him. For the most part, I don't really object to these changes to Lulu's character; I think they work pretty well in the movie. In the novel Lulu is portrayed as weak and whiny, so I like that she's more empowered in the film.

On the other hand, I kind of hate some of the changes made to Sharon's character. As I mentioned earlier, she's not actually in very much of the book, but she has a huge impact on Elmer's life, mainly because she's the only woman he ever respects, with the possible exception of his mother. She insists that he stop smoking and drinking, which in the book he does for the rest of his life; in the movie he only sort of gives them up. Novel Sharon makes it clear that she appreciates Elmer's talents, but remains in charge; film Sharon basically puts him in charge and frequently talks about how much she needs him. In the book, Elmer intends to seduce her, but ends up being seduced himself. In the movie, he talks her into sleeping with him. I actually said, "Ew, no" out loud multiple times during that scene, mostly because in the book she's so clearly the dominant personality in their relationship, and the movie makes her seem like a naive little girl being guided by a strong man of the world. Of all the myriad changes that clearly intentionally altered the tone of the story, that's the one I most objected to. Overall, Sharon's character was fairly consistent, but the movie makes her significantly weaker for no good reason.

I don't mean to imply that this isn't a good movie because it is. I just have trouble believing that it was truly the best adapted screenplay of that year. I think Sinclair Lewis would have considered the filmmakers cowardly for shying away from some of his more biting satire, and for dis-empowering his strongest female character. However, given the controversial nature of the story and that this was 1960, I'm almost surprised that the adaptation wasn't even less faithful.

Next up: Judgment at Nuremberg, the second movie adapted from a teleplay to win this award.

1959: Room at the Top

Screenplay by Neil Paterson
Adapted from the novel Room at the Top by John Braine

Ambitious, young Joe Lampton moves from his small, poor hometown to a more affluent place, where he hopes to rise to a higher class. It looks like his dreams might come true when he meets beautiful Susan Brown, the 19-year-old daughter of an extremely wealthy business owner. True, she has a boyfriend, but Joe sees that as only a minor setback. Then Joe falls for older, sexy, married Alice Aisgill, which becomes more of a major setback.

I was not looking forward to revisiting this story, since when I watched it before during my Best Actress project, I did not particularly enjoy the film. After reading the book and re-watching the movie, I must say that I think the book is significantly better, which is odd because on the whole it's a relatively faithful adaptation. However, some of the seemingly minor changes end up altering the characters and story in surprisingly drastic ways, at least in my interpretation.

One of the biggest differences is in the way the story is told. The book is written in first person, from the perspective of Joe Lampton ten years later. The story depicts a crucial turning point in his life, and several times throughout the book he remarks on the way he could have done things differently. He sounds as though he's ultimately happy with the decisions he made and where he ended up in life, but with a touch of nostalgia, and even perhaps a hint of regret. The film, on the other hand, gives us nothing from future Joe: no scenes of his later life, no voice-over narration, nothing. The film adds a scene at the end that was merely implied in the book, but it gives a more bleak picture of his future than the book does. I think the story greatly benefits from reflections made by a Joe who has distanced himself from its events. The first time I watched the movie I couldn't fathom how Joe could live with himself; the book makes that a lot clearer.

Partly because of the narration, the book version of Joe is significantly more understandable and likable than the film version. It helps that he's justifying his own actions, but there's also something else that may seem small but makes all the difference: in the book he loves Susan; in the movie he doesn't. Of course, in both versions it's clear he loves Alice more, but even in that they differ because the movie makes his preference more about sex than love. Skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't want spoilers. Basically, in both versions, Joe has a passionate affair with Alice, which starts as a friends with benefits arrangement, but turns into love. They get to the point where, after a beautiful vacation together, Alice is about to ask her husband for a divorce, when Joe changes his mind and marries Susan instead. This decision is influenced by the fact that Susan is pregnant with his child, after they slept together once. Here's the difference: in the book, Joe only sleeps with Susan after he's determined that he's not going to marry Alice. At first he stops seeing Susan for awhile, then has his vacation with Alice, and then his friend is like, "Dude, you don't want to marry someone who cheats on her husband, oh and btw she had an affair with that guy Susan was dating, and probably lots of other people." So he decides to go back to Susan, and only after that is their relationship consummated. True, he could have handled the situation better (he doesn't officially break up with Alice right away), but it's understandable. Compare that to the movie, in which he sleeps with Susan before his vacation with Alice. And then, I mean, it's not super explicit, but he's basically like, "Wow, she's terrible at sex compared to Alice," and that's when he sets up the vacation. And then he decides he wants to be rich so he's going to marry Susan instead, especially once he finds out she's pregnant. To me, this makes him way more of a jerk in the movie than in the book.

Naturally there are several other changes. Joe has a close friend named Charles, who in the book is from his hometown and mainly shows up in flashbacks, but in the movie is a new friend from the new town. The movie adds a whole section about Susan's father trying to get Joe a job back in his hometown so he'll leave Susan alone; in the book he doesn't put in that much effort to thwart Joe. But none of these other changes bothered me as much as switching the order of his affairs to make him more of a jerk. Maybe the movie was trying to show that cold ambition can't make you happy? Or maybe the screen writer got a different picture of Joe from the novel than I did? Either way, I'm kind of glad I read the book, since it gave me an entirely different perspective on the story.

Whew, the 1950s sure took me a long time to get through! The 1960s will begin with Elmer Gantry, based on the novel by Sinclair Lewis, so stay tuned.