Hollywood legend Burt Lancaster nabbed a Best Actor Oscar as glad-handing, soul-redeeming charlatan Elmer Gantry, a huckster who spins his talent for preaching into a métier behind the pulpit. Hopping aboard the barnstorming evangelical crusade of Sister Sharon Falconer (Jean Simmons), Gantry moralizes his way to fame and fortune till an erstwhile ladylove (Shirley Jones) threatens to expose his shady history as a skirt-chaser and scam artist.