Child Bride of Short Creek

This is a dramatization of a historic raid on a polygamist community. I grew up in Utah as a non-Mormon, but I went with my best friend to all kinds of LDS church meetings, conferences and dances. The main LDS church will excommunicate you for polygamy, but off shoot churches have continued this practice to this day. The "Big Brother" feel of everyone knowing everyone else's business, and being expected to do as everyone else does, in every little thing in your life, is very true. It is a realistic glimpse into a tightly woven religious sect (cult if you will). Very young girls are married off to men the age of their fathers, or even grandfathers, and often they are already related in some way, because of the small size of the community. I love this line; the girls are doing hard chores in above 100(f)degree heat. One of the girls had dared to roll up the sleeves of her very modest, below the knee, dress to just above her elbows to cool off a bit. Her mother says "roll those sleeves down!-you want to show everything you've got!?"

The first time I saw this movie I was really impressed. I loved the plot and I loved the way the story was told. I made me think of a religious dictator telling his followers how to live their lives. There were times when I was mad and times when I would cry. I loved this movie. It's worth watching again and again.

My wife & I have enjoyed this movie at least once per year since '81. The casting was just about perfect especially the youthful Diane Lane with her wonderful facial expressions. Conrad Bain really captured the character of President King when Brother Jacobs first turned to him and President King said "God has Spoken". Then after a moment of reflection Jacobs threw in the towel when he turned again and said "Amen". The plot was just right for the first viewing. Lets have a six hour miniseries exploring the break from the Mormons and then fast forward to the fifties with a little more of the "fire & brimstone" preaching. Yes of course" to a remake with about twenty percent more character development. Perhaps Diane Lane could be a sister wife in the remake and old Brother Otley could be trying to have his way with Naomi. I would also like to develop the idea of polygamy being "God's way" and see the old men trying to continuously justify it as such.

I have seen this film twice and have wanted to add it to my collection of personal favorites, but so far it has not been shown again on T.V. and is hard to find in DVD/VHS format. The movie stars a very young Diane Lane and Helen Hunt (i.e. before they were famous) with a then up and coming young star Christopher Atkins (a.k.a. Blue Lagoon heart-throb). The plot was full of melodrama about a polygamist cult and a young man falling for a young woman betroth to his father. What was most engaging about the film was no matter what the environment, that timeless boy-girl true love dynamic was in play. If the movie focused more on the injustices and immoralities of polygamy than love; I think something in this heart-warming film would have been lost. After all that is what documentaries are for, not movies of the week.

The only thing I could not figure out watching Child Bride Of Short Creek is why did Conrad Bain let Christopher Atkins go to war and return from Korea? Just being exposed to a wider world out there would have guaranteed trouble. Trouble being someone out there who knew that what the Prophet said was not necessarily so even if it's his own son. Or did Atkins just want to get away himself?

In any event Atkins and Bain belong to a breakaway group of Mormons who are still polygamists. Bain is the leader and the Prophet does have perks in the office. Like being polygamous and allowing same for some of your buds and having the choice of the young girls being raised by this frightening group of inbreds.

For his fourth wife Bain has chosen Diane Lane and she's someone Atkins kind of likes. But the Prophet has spoken, even as law enforcement is starting to look at this isolated place and its practices.

Made right on the heels of Christopher Atkins's stunning debut in The Blue Lagoon, it's a nice ensemble cast that delivers here. Conrad Bain is far from the Dad in Different Strokes, he's one frightening self righteous dude who maintains his hold on the group through ignorance and isolation.

My favorite scene however is with Atkins and his mother Joan Shawlee the Prophet's first wife. Shawlee who made a career of playing brassy comic dames, but she's anything but that. She's playing a frightening caricature of a woman who knows nothing else but the ways of her breakaway Mormon world.

Interestingly enough I'm guessing because of law suits the name Latter Day Saints (LDS) or Mormon is never used. But we know who these folks are.

This is a really good made for TV film about a frightening group of people.