From my favorite movies..

Best movie ever!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The early years of the Mormon faith, from oppression in Illinois and the murder of Joseph Smith (Vincent Price), to the first fateful year at the great Salt Lake, is seen through the eyes of Brigham Young (Dean Jagger), young Mormon follower Tyrone Power, and non-Mormon Linda Darnell, who's father was murdered trying to protect Power's farm.Jagger is appropriately stoic and dignified, while Price gives an early atypical performance, without a drop of he hamminess that his fans love him for. Fellow future horror star John Carradine is quite memorable as a tough, long-haired mountain man, who was interesting enough to have warranted his own movie.The movie does a good job of portraying the stark terror of Smith and his followers' persecution. That part is so potent that their subsequent hardships seem almost tame in comparison. Still, it's good, uplifting entertainment, even for those largely unfamiliar with the LDS religion.While I don't know what characters were real or imagined, that of top-billed Power and Linda Darnell, as pleasant as they are, seem a bit contrived for marquee purposes, as does "villain" Brian Donlevy.

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.

As another LDS viewer, I also like the film and find its hollywoodization of facts far less disturbing than say those of Stone's JFK. That said, I feel inclined to re-correct three facts that another LDS viewer pointed out. 1) While Joseph Smith was falsely imprisoned many times during his life, at the time of his murder he was under arrest, pending trial, for an offense he DID commit -- namely his ordering the destruction of the press of an opposition newspaper in Nauvoo. 2) While the slender 2/3rds majority of Nauvoo mormons did side with Brigham after Joseph's murder, roughly a third did not and scattered to the winds. And the issue of succession was by no means decided upon Joseph's death. It was nip and tuck, with several contenders vying for the crown, until Brigham's legendary 'immaculate impersonation' speech at conference. 3) I thought Vincent Price's portrayal of Joseph Smith was pretty good -- charismatic and visionary, somewhat other-worldly, but what do you expect.

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."