Say what you will about the melodramatic propaganda film Trapped By the Mormons (1922), you can’t exactly call it subtle. You also can’t call it good, either. But some these days call it hysterical. Me? I call it silent, which is why I’m reviewing it now!
#1 by lyzard on August 20, 2008 - 11:54 pm
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You know, I really think that at some point you might have sent a little of that all-compassing manhood this way, bro’…. (After all, I’m half-British.)
#2 by Blake Matthews on August 21, 2008 - 5:56 am
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Who do we fault more: people that make these films or moviegoers with the “it’s in a movie, it must be true” mentality?
#3 by Blake Matthews on August 21, 2008 - 6:40 am
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I met my wife on my mission, although we were located on opposite sides of the country (thus we were but penpals). As a result, I don’t think I could exercise any supernatural power through the written word.
#4 by MatthewF on August 21, 2008 - 6:58 am
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So that’s what happened to my great-grandmother! Give her back darn you or I’ll jolly well sieze Utah in the name of good queen Liz. It’s time to put the British back in Empire. Gah, surrounded by colonials.
I’ll just shut up now.
#5 by Ken Begg on August 21, 2008 - 8:30 am
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As a fan of The Dark Night Returns, I’m disappointed with Frank Miller’s work on this. This also makes me even more concerned about his upcoming The Spirit adaptation.
#6 by Nathan Shumate on August 21, 2008 - 9:29 am
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Lyz: Mormon vampires vs. Australian criminals!
Ken: I just couldn’t find a place to work in a Frank Miller joke. Thanks for taking up the slack.
#7 by Blake Matthews on August 21, 2008 - 10:24 am
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I met my wife on my mission, but she was my pen-pal (we were in two totally different parts of Brazil). I don’t think I could’ve mesmerized her through the written word.
#8 by Nathan Shumate on August 21, 2008 - 11:29 am
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I would be satisfied to be an example of one-conquering manhood.
#9 by El Santo on August 21, 2008 - 12:05 pm
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So, Nathan– any plans to do Brigham Young, Frontiersman one of these days? I mean, how many people can say that Vincent Price once played the founder of their religion?
#10 by El Santo on August 21, 2008 - 12:09 pm
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(Well, okay– obviously, the answer is “however many Mormons there are these days,” but you know what I mean. Nobody half that cool ever played Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, or Buddha, and even Moses had to settle for Charlton Heston.)
#11 by Nathan Shumate on August 21, 2008 - 12:13 pm
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Heston also played Brigham Young in an otherwise godawful TV-movie. And yes, eventually a young Vincent Price will become a martyr to his faith on my site. Eventually…
#12 by Blake Matthews on August 21, 2008 - 12:14 pm
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My dad loved Brigham Young, Frontiersman. I always found it weird watching Dean Jagger play Brigham and then listening to him swear in Game of Death (one of my all-time favorite films).
#13 by Chad R. on August 21, 2008 - 1:24 pm
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Hey, Max von Sydow played Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told. I would put Max within shouting distance of being as cool as Vincent Price (and I loooove Vincent Price).
#14 by El Santo on August 21, 2008 - 1:34 pm
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“I always found it weird watching Dean Jagger play Brigham and then listening to him swear in Game of Death (one of my all-time favorite films).”
In that case, watch Brigham Young again, and go check out Revolt of the Zombies immediately thereafter. Heaven knows you’ll need some sort of extra-diagetic assistance to mine any enjoyment out of that movie, and maybe the chance to imagine Young reinventing himself as a black magician and Third-World strongman after getting screwed over by everyone he ever trusted can provide it.
#15 by lyzard on August 21, 2008 - 2:14 pm
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And you call yourself a Mormon!
#16 by Blake Matthews on August 21, 2008 - 2:25 pm
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Wasn’t there a silly Charles Bronson movie about “Mormons”? Was it “Messenger of Death”?
#17 by KeithA on August 21, 2008 - 3:12 pm
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I’ve often said that unless you are a sultan or Great Caliph or a Caesar or some other god-king, polygamy just means extra voices telling you to finish regrouting the bathroom tile.
Did Jack Chick ever do a comic on Mormons?
And yes, I WAS supposed to regrout the bathroom tile this past weekend. I went to a bar instead. Don’t make me go all Andy Capp on ya!
#18 by Nathan Shumate on August 21, 2008 - 3:34 pm
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If Chick never did, then I feel discriminated against.
#19 by El Santo on August 21, 2008 - 5:34 pm
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“By all historical accounts, Mormon polygamy wasn’t an especially salacious enterprise, certainly no more so than your average monogamous marriage, and probably quite a bit less; the photos that have been passed down of polygamous families don’t exactly call to mind the male fantasy of the sexual libertine with his harem.”
Reminds me of that fundamentalist Mormon splinter group that got raided on child-abuse charges a few months back. The first thing that went through my mind when the women started showing up in the media was, “Yeesh! Why would you want even one of these biddies around the house, let alone half a dozen or more?!”
#20 by Nathan Shumate on August 21, 2008 - 8:24 pm
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“Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we
had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of
polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to
calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter.
“I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I
was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here–until
I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my
head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically “homely”
creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I
said, “No–the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian
charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their
harsh censure–and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of
open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered
in his presence and worship in silence.””
– Mark Twain, Roughing It
#21 by Dr. Mabuse on August 21, 2008 - 8:57 pm
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KeithA asked “Did Jack Chick ever do a comic on Mormons?”
Calling myself a Jack T. Chick scholar would do me too much honor, however I think I may at least rate the appellation of Jack T. Chick enthusiast. I can, therefore, speak with a small amount of authority on this subject. In answer to your question: yes, Jack did do a single tract on Mormons, called “The Visitors.”
The tract may be viewed here: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0061/0061_01.asp
If you are Russian and would prefer to view the tract in your native language you may view it here: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1708/1708_01.asp
“The Visitors” is the tale of young Janice and how she prevents two Mormon missionaries from converting her Aunt Fran. Elder Grant and Elder Bruce are apparently much less formidable than Elder Isoldi in that they do not possess the fearful and mysterious power of Mesmerism. In fact, Janice is able to kibosh on the Mormons’ plans simply by exposing the supposed contradictions in their faith. Towards the end, Elder Bruce starts to question *his* religion. This angers Elder Grant, who declares that when the mission president finds out about his lack of faith, he’ll ship poor old Bruce to Timbuktu.
You can also find multitudinous “Battle Cry” (Jack’s online collection of articles, some penned by Jack, some by guest authors) essays on the subject of Mormonism. But the fact that “The Visitors” only rates one tract indicates to me that Mormonism doesn’t score very highly in Jack’s threat list- beneath Rock music (2 or 3 tracts), Halloween (3 or 4 tracts), communism (about half a dozen or more tracts), and Catholicism (approximately a billion tracts).
I could be mistaken, but I don’t think “The Visitors” was even drawn by Jack himself. I think there’s a fair chance that it was drawn by Fred Carter, longtime Jack Chick collaborator, who favors a more “realistic” art style. Jack himself seems to draw in a more “cartoony” style (for reference check out “The Mad Machine” http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0072/0072_01.asp , which I’m pretty sure Jack drew, and compare it to the art style in The Crusaders and Alberto series of comics, http://www.chick.com/catalog/comics/0112.asp , which were drawn by Fred Carter).
All in all, if Catholicism is to Jack Chick what the Joker is to Batman, then in Jack’s Rouges Gallery, Mormonism might be the equivalent of Kite Man or possibly Egghead.
#22 by MatthewF on August 22, 2008 - 12:57 am
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I look forward to ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses:Sneaky and Strange’
#23 by Andrew on August 22, 2008 - 6:05 am
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Couple of things:
1. Yes, Jack Chick did an anti-Mormon tract. It’s awful.
2. Don’t forget “Savage Journey,” a 1983 made-for-TV movie, starring Richard Moll (yes, BULL from “Night Court”) as Joseph Smith! One of my seminary teachers made us watch it. It’s awful.
#24 by Blake Matthews on August 22, 2008 - 6:11 am
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I remember hearing a story in Institute about a guy going up to Joseph Smith and declaring that he was ready to practice polygamy. Joseph Smith responded told the guy that he was a whoremonger and sent him on his way.
#25 by Nathan Shumate on August 22, 2008 - 7:02 am
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Re the Chick tract: Ick. The idea that a Mormon missionary would stumble over the half-truths in that tract and be shaken in his faith is like an evolutionary biologist denying modern biological science after someone asks him, “Oh yeah? If apes evolved into man, howcome there are still apes?”
#26 by El Santo on August 22, 2008 - 9:23 am
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Which a fair number of young-Earth creationists honestly think is a viable angle of attack, if the number of times I’ve been asked that very question is any indication.
#27 by Nathan Shumate on August 22, 2008 - 10:10 am
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And has your worldview shifted dramatically because of the question? No? I rest my case.
#28 by KeithA on August 22, 2008 - 11:17 am
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Sour grapes, Nathan. You’re just jealous that Mormons didn’t get a comic tract of as high a caliber as the one where a couple Christians convert Muslim fundamentalists by explaining to them how Allah is just some crazy “Moon God.” I’ll pay good money to anyone who goes to Afghanistan, tries that out, and returns alive with new Christian soldiers. Or even just returns alive.
#29 by Nathan Shumate on August 22, 2008 - 11:22 am
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I’d do it, too, but I need to finish regrouting some tile.
#30 by Chad on August 22, 2008 - 2:02 pm
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“Hey, Max von Sydow played Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told.”
Nothing tops, at least for gay men and straight women, Christian Bale playing Jesus. Never has religion been so inspiring to me.
#31 by lyzard on August 22, 2008 - 3:28 pm
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I’ve always had rather a thing for Jeffrey Hunter’s blue eyes. Which I assume He got from His Father.
Oh, wouldn’t it be awful if Elder Grant and Elder Bruce turned around and did exactly the same thing to Janice? Those heathens!
#32 by KeithA on August 22, 2008 - 4:05 pm
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Debates over contradictions in Scripture always remind me of a passage from the Principia Discordia:
“All things are true.”
“Even false things?”
“ESPECIALLY false things!”
“But how can that be?”
“I don’t know man, I didn’t do it.”
#33 by MatthewF on August 23, 2008 - 1:49 am
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As Leonaerd Nimoy said on the Simpons, “and the real truth is; there is no truth. Or is it?”
#34 by MatthewF on August 23, 2008 - 1:50 am
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Jeez Leonard on the Simpsons.
Wish I could type.