O Filho dos Deuses

I rented this film because of my interest in American history, and especially the somewhat weird story of the Mormons. This movie attempts to make some sense out of how Joseph Smith could turn his "vision" into a major world religion. It first focuses on the troubles the Mormons had in their settlement at Navuoo, Illinois. It portrays the trial of Joseph Smith. Within the course of that trial, Brigham Young stands up to tell of his conversion to Mormonism, and of his belief in the spiritual message of Smith. Then Smith is assassinated, and Young must deal with his own doubts about whether he has been chosen to lead the Mormons to a new land. Despite his grave doubts, he perseveres, and finally has a vision (that Utah is the place for his colony) that gives him confidence in the rightness of his leadership. Later, as crops are destroyed by crickets, he again doubts that he has truly been chosen--however, a miracle occurs, which cements his place in history.

I found the performances to be moving, and the story to be convincing and interesting. I would love to know whether Mormons believe that this is an accurate portrayal. Polygamy is a part of the story, but the reasons why this is central to LDS are not raised. The issue is not emphasized.

I'm sure people stay away from this movie because of its religious subject-matter, but it has a great cast and will hold your interest throughout.

I just saw the movie Brigham Young (1940) at a screening at Brigham Young University. I found the movie to be entertaining and worthwhile as a film, although the historicity is basically a skeleton on which Hollywood drapes their story--which is what Hollywood did all the time anyway. At least it is a positive portrayal.

It may interest readers to know what Heber J. Grant, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1918 to 1945 had to say about the movie. This is taken from the LDS Conference Report, Sunday October 6, 1940, page 96.

"I am thankful beyond expression for the very wonderful and splendid moving picture that has been made of Brigham Young. I have heard some little criticism of it, but we cannot expect the people who do not know that Brigham Young was in very deed the representative of God upon this earth, who do not know his wonderful character, to tell the story as we would tell it. We know that he was a prophet of the living God and the representative of the Lord here upon the earth. There is nothing in the picture that reflects in any way against our people. It is a very marvelous and wonderful thing, considering how people generally have treated us and what they have thought of us. Of course there are many things in the picture that are not strictly correct, and that is announced in the picture itself. It is of course a picture and we could not hope that they would make a picture at their expense, running into a couple of million dollars, to be just as we would like it. We know that Brigham Young was a powerful and wonderful man, the greatest man of his day, and one of the great things about Brigham Young was that he always gave credit to Joseph Smith for everything that he did. He claimed that he was simply building upon the foundation laid by the prophet of God, who had seen God and conversed with Jesus Christ. He never doubted for one minute the final triumph of the people here in Utah. He was a man of God, and the people thought the world and all of him."

I enjoyed Brigham Young-Frontiersman immensely, however, I would not characterize the movie as an accurate portrayal of the personalities in the film. Although the events are accurate enough, the film does not do justice to the historical figures. Immediately noticeable is the positive light that Mormons are cast in, and I think this is necessary to make the film work given the subject matter and historical events portrayed. Nevertheless, being a card carrying Mormon, and having read a great deal of history and biography on the leaders of the Church, I cannot say that the personalities are true to history. I thought that Vincent Price cast as Joseph Smith was very strange, though my reaction to him in the role was heavily tainted by his later roles in the Roger Corman adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe's works (The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, etc.). Still, I felt that Price was not charismatic enough, and did not have the forceful presence that Joseph Smith surely had in life. Dean Jagger cast as Brigham Young was more tolerable, but not really as convincing as say Brian Keith in the Wind and the Lion, or George C. Scott in Patton. Furthermore, Brigham Young had a very powerful, direct, yet unrefined manner of speech that had it been carefully followed or mimicked, would have made the character much more convincing. His manner of speech is entirely unique and really gets a reader's attention. It is often very humorous as well. Hearing it in the film would have greatly improved the script, but the writers would have needed to immerse themselves thoroughly in his discourses and writings to carry it off.

Moreover, there are a host of perspectives or ways of looking at things that are unique to Mormons, not to mention a very distinctive manner of speech and phraseology regarding religious matters that the film failed to capture. As an active Mormon, I would have to say that as I watched the film I felt like an insider observing a film written by outsiders who had not properly done their homework. The film has many fine qualities and I give it a good rating. If the writing had been more true to Mormon thinking, speech patterns and their leaders unique personalities, it would have been all that was necessary to raise the film from good to great. All of this aside, I give the film three stars out of a possible four.

I noticed that a few of the comments above mentioned that Vincent Price was a strange pick, or "over the top," or whatever, as Joseph Smith.

Before seeing the film, I also thought that seeing Vincent Price as Joseph Smith was a bit odd, but as others have said, this is because of the many *later* horror/thriller films he appeared in.

"Brigham Young," by IMDb's count, was only Price's *seventh* film, and at the time, I'm confident that he had not yet cemented his "creepy" persona.

Generally, though, I echo what has been written-- not completely accurate (what historical film is?) but characters are portrayed fairly and the film was entertaining.

It must have been a difficult thing to make a movie in 1940 about the Mormons in the 19th century with polygamy being practiced by them at that time, but Daryl F. Zanuck gave it a try, even managing to get it past the production code and the censors of the time. He is definitely trying to parallel the trek of the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land headed by Moses with the Mormons traveling from Nauvoo to Salt Lake headed by Brigham Young. There are some colorful characters thrown in such as John Caradine's Porter Rockwell, a rather wild scout, who pulls his guns on a prosecutor during a trial so that Brigham Young (Dean Jagger) can have a chance to speak in Joseph Smith's defense, and the judge lets him get away with that?? Then there is also a romance thrown in with Mormon Jonathan Kent (Tyrone Power) and non-Mormon Zina Webb (Linda Darnell) slowly falling for each other as they travel across the continent with the Mormons. When Jonathan proposes marriage, Zina has reservations - first off, she is not a Mormon, and more importantly, she doesn't want to be the first of many Mrs.Kents. Her reservations were probably justified.

There is even a bad guy in the (fictional) person of Angus Duncan (Brian Donlevy) who claims that Joseph Smith told him that he was to head the church in case of his death, and then causes trouble for Brigham Young every step of the way, including trying to get the Mormons to follow him to California rather than stop at Salt Lake. And yes, Angus is just like Edward G. Robinson's trouble making character in "The Ten Commandments", but remember, this film was made sixteen years before "Ten Commandments".

The whole time, as Brigham makes decisions that effect the lives of all of the Mormons, he confides in wife Mary Ann that he is not sure that he is being led by God to make all of these decisions, so that he carries a burden of feeling that he could be misleading the others when he tells them to do this or that, but all the while his heart is in the right place. The film brings up some valid points to anybody that believes in God - How do you really know when He is speaking to you? How do you know a true prophet from a false one? I'm no expert on LDS history, in fact I'm not LDS at all, but if you want a rousing Western adventure that is a little different you might give this one a try.

This film must have been somewhat convincing to non-Mormons as a realistic portrayal of what happened, because I distinctly remember this film being shown in elementary school back in history class when I was growing up in Texas! Do note that Dallas, Texas was probably lacking in large numbers of people who were neither a Baptist nor a Methodist back in 1967. Catch this one if you can. The performances are excellent even if the history may be a little off.