Saturday, January 27, 2007

Old Brigham Young

As a follow up to Thursday's post about an insidious Brigham Young portrayal, and as reprieve from ominous news, I happened to watch that recently released-to-DVD Fox film, titled none other than Brigham Young (1940). This is that wonderful film that broke a world record for attendance at a premiere, as indicated in a Meridian Magazine article:

Before the film was released nationwide, it premiered in Salt Lake City on August 23rd, 1940 at seven different theaters, in what is still the largest movie premiere audience ever, even in Hollywood. More than 214,000 people lined Salt Lake City’s Main Street for the parade honoring Mr. Zanuck and the movie's stars before the premiere. Utah’s governor Herbert Maw declared it "Brigham Young Day." A specially prepared pull-out section was printed for all Salt Lake City newspapers. Stores were closed and special excursion trains were run into Salt Lake City by Union Pacific Railroad for the event. That evening, following the parade, a gala dinner at the Lion House followed hosted by President Heber J. Grant.

While the movie is fairly inaccurate at many points, yet it is constitutionally integral, whole overall, and, for me, quite a moving picture (no pun intended). It sympathizes well with Brigham Young and the whole movement of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

There are numerous curiosities with regards to this film (see Meridian's article for several), including Vincent Price's high regard and fascination with the character he plays (Joseph Smith), and Dean Jagger's later conversion to the Church in 1972. (Jagger plays Brigham Young in the film.) Listening to a commentary on the DVD by James D'Arc, curator of the motion picture archives in the Harold B. Lee Library Special Collections at Brigham Young University, he points out something I thought was particularly interesting:

Jagger's resemblance to the real Brigham Young was remarkable, according to eighty-year-old Mormon official George Piper, hired by the studio as a technical adviser. Piper, who was a young man when Brigham Young died in 1877, said, "besides resembling him in appearance, there's also a striking similarity to voice. I was only seventeen when Brigham Young died, but I had known him well. Mr. Jagger even has some of Brigham's mannerisms, and his walk."

So this was a nice upper. My favorite lines from the film? Aside from Porter Rockwell's politically incorrect arithmetic on polygamy, wherein he says, "Women are easy to convert!" (i.e., 1 man x 20 or 30 wives = 100s in posterity), I rather enjoyed a simple exchange between Brigham Young and the fictional non-Mormon character Zina Webb.

Zina: "I'm a Christian."

Brigham: "So am I."

Therein lies the whole elegance of the film.

posted by Rhapsidiomite @ 10:30 AM
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