Savage Journey

Savage Journey tells the story about the original founders of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints as they trek across the United States looking for a home in the 19th century. Persecuted wherever they go, the Mormons end up in the unsettled land that will one day become known as Utah. The drama centres on the two founding members Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

This film is certainly pretty ambitious in scope but it ultimately fails primarily on account of its poor production values which are not good enough to execute such an expansive story. It has to be said that this is a highly biased presentation of the Mormons, which whitewashes such contentious issues such as the groups endorsement of polygamy. The Mormons in this story are shown to be very worthy and good to a level that seems unlikely. The film itself gets plus points for its educational value, yet despite this it's still not exactly very good and simply does not engage the viewer as much as it should.

I only about the Mormon Church through the haters that run it today. I have no knowledge of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. I am told that this portrayal is accurate about the early years of the church and of the men.

I only remember Richard Moll as Bull from Night Court. Here, he plays Joseph Smith to a Brigham Young played by Maurice Grandmaison, who also played Brigham Young in the 1977 movie of the same name.

Watching the massacre of women and children at the hands of the rednecks was tough.

The acting was terrible and the production values were decidedly amateurish, but the story was compelling about the struggles of a people who have lost their way.

Savage Journey is the story of the Mormon Church if not from the beginning when Joseph Smith was visited by the Angel Moroni on his farm in Palmyra, New York, it does tell the story from its early days of wandering and persecution until the church settled in what is now the state of Utah. I presume it was made with the full cooperation of the LDS church and made with an audience of non-believers in mind. A kind of Mormon primer.

It certainly is more accurate than the Hollywood classic Brigham Young, Frontiersman that starred Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell back in the day with Dean Jagger as Brigham Young and Vincent Price as Joseph Smith. Though more historically accurate than that one, Savage Journey surely does lack the production values that 20th Century Fox could give it.

The only name familiar to most of us is Richard Moll who was Bull Shannon on Night Court and who played Joseph Smith in the film. It's kind of hard to accept Moll in the part, possibly not his fault, but I kept seeing the intellectually challenged Bull as I watched him. Someone like Vincent Price who was also tall as Joseph Smith was, but who also played cerebral characters when he wasn't scaring us to death on the screen was perfect.

I did enjoy Moll telling the Illinois jailers before he was lynched by a mob that as a prophet he foresaw blood and destruction on the USA within the lifetime of these people. Now I don't think it would have taken any metaphysical insights into predicting the Civil War. Many saw it coming and none of them claimed God as their source of information.

The seminal event of the LDS Church, the one that convinced them that the Deity was giving them a special providence was the sea gulls appearing to eat the locusts that were devouring that first crop of their's in the winter of 1846-47. That part was handled well given the limited budget this film must have had.

Still Savage Journey does not claim to be more than an educational and evangelical tool and it really doesn't rise much above the level of the Christian films from Protestant evangelical churches.

I originally saw this while I was living in Norway. As such, it had Norwegian subtitles across the bottom of the screen. I was, at the time, serving as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons).

The two main players in the early days of the church were Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Joseph Smith was the founder of the church, and Brigham Young later took the reins after his death, leading the members of the church to modern-day Utah. This movie deals with these early days of the church.

Brigham Young was well portrayed. Everything I've read about the man says this portrayal was spot-on. At first, I thought Joseph Smith had been miscast. I mean, come on: Richard Moll (who plays Joseph Smith) is better known as "Bull" Shannon on "Night Court." In retrospect, it's not that far off. The real Joseph Smith was well over six feet tall, and was generally known for being a very gentle person.

The early persecution of the church, and the subject of polygamy are dealt with head-on, and accurately.

All-told, a decent movie, carried by the strength of the stories and the portrayals. The budget is pretty low, so don't expect too much flash.

This is the story of the founding of the Mormon Church and their trek across America to found Utah.

I'm not sure how this will play if you're not a Mormon. To me it seemed like a cross between the old Sunn Classic pseudo documentaries (ie Beyond and Back, In Search of Noah's Ark) and one of the awkward educational films you'd see in school. Yes its informative, but ts not very interesting. It definitely not something that I would ever put on again for enjoyment. Its just sort of is.

Actually the most interesting thing is the casting of Richard Moll as Joseph Smith the founder of the church. The role is so very different than what we know him for, Bull on Night Court and monsters in low budget horror movies, that this is a nice change of pace.

Worth a shot if you're curious but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it.