The movie opens in the town of Nauvoo, Illinois in 1844. After Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is assassinated, Brigham Young (Dean Jagger) leads his followers via wagon train to Nebraska, where they temporarily settle, then on to Utah. Portions of the film focus on a young couple (Power and Linda Darnell) whose devotion to each other must survive the tumultuous journey.
Power agreed to take on a supporting role in Brigham Young-- Frontiersman both because studio head Darryl Zanuck asked him to, and also because of his close relationship with Hathaway. The two men had already collaborated on a gangster melodrama called Johnny Apollo (1940), and Power far preferred Hathaway's guidance to that of the forever-intruding Zanuck.
Although at this point in his career Power was often presented as little more than a handsome, charismatic presence in movies, Hathaway recognized that the actor was an intelligent, committed professional who always had his lines memorized in the morning and was focused on the work at hand...which, unfortunately, was more than one could expect from many stars of Power's magnitude.
Hathaway and Power began work on Brigham Young-- Frontiersman very soon after completing Johnny Apollo. Zanuck, who cooked up the concept for the film himself, was convinced that Jagger, a successful supporting player at the time, could make the jump to leading man status with the right part. But he also felt Power's draw would bolster the picture's box office - and it did, though the movie still lost money.
Zanuck wasn't particularly interested in actual Mormonism; the narrative theoretically focuses on the ordeal of some 20,000 people making a harrowing journey from Illinois to the Great Salt Lake, where, of course, Young's church was founded. Zanuck viewed the story as an American equivalent of the Israelites trekking across the desert in search of the Promised Land, sort of an updated Biblical epic, except that no less than ten romantic interludes between Power and Darnell were written into the screenplay because Zanuck had received thousands of letters from fans complaining that Power didn't see enough amorous action in his pictures. Periodically, then, the suffering of thousands hits a backburner.
The filming of Brigham Young -- Frontiersman was no small undertaking. Hathaway insisted on a location shoot, so the entire cast and crew traveled between the Utah desert, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and Big Bear Lake for several weeks. Second Unit director Otto Bower also shot for six weeks throughout Utah, and hit a jackpot of sorts when he stumbled upon a plague of locusts gnawing away in the hamlet of Elko, Nevada.
Power hated the part he was asked to play, but he and Hathaway attempted to make the best of it by turning the 133 day shoot into a lengthy gathering of friends. It resulted in a lot of barbecues, and Power, an animal lover, was able to spend leisure time with Lady, his German Shepherd. If only Young and his flock had had it so good.
Director: Henry Hathaway
Producer: Kenneth Macgowan
Screenplay: Lamar Trotti, Louis Bromfield
Cinematographer: Arthur Miller
Editor: Robert Bischoff
Music: Alfred Newman
Art Direction: William Darling, Maurice Ransford
Cast: Tyrone Power (Jonathan Kent), Linda Darnell (Zina Webb), Dean Jagger (Brigham Young), Brian Donlevy (Angus Duncan), Jane Darwell (Eliza Kent), John Carradine (Porter Rockwell), Mary Astor (Mary Ann Young), Vincent Price (Joseph Smith), Jean Rogers (Clara Young).
B&W-113m.
by Paul Tatara
