It is unprecedented - or close to it - that a writer needs to disclose his affiliations or beliefs before reviewing a film, but "September Dawn" presents such a situation. So here it goes: I have no connection whatsoever with the Mormon Church, and neither sympathize with it nor oppose it.
From that "neutral" point of view, "September Dawn" appears a sandwich of a film, with a purpose on top, a biased view on the bottom, and a poorly made movie in-between. This meant-to-be controversial film about another shameful "9/11," a Mormon massacre of 120 innocent men, women and children in Utah on Sept. 11, 1857, is open about its agenda: "(The Mountain Meadows story) closely resembles the religious fanaticism the world is seeing today. People were killed in the name of God 150 years ago and they're still being killed in the name of God." So says the director, Christopher Cain.
Mountain Meadows was the stopping place for a wagon train on the Old Spanish Trail from Arkansas (and Missouri, so the Mormons might have believed) on the way to California. What is an established historical fact is that Mormon militia, together with Indians pressed into the fight, killed most of the would-be settlers in cold blood.
"September Dawn" mentions in passing some of the many factors involved - such as the killing of church-founder Joseph Smith by a mob in an Illinois jail, the Mormons' fear of federal troops moving against them, and so on - and yet the entire film is simply a blanket indictment of the church. People on the wagon train are uniformly kind, decent, altogether wonderful; the Mormon leadership is consistently and grossly evil. It's not a matter of good people turning bad, but rather a boring straight line from expected evil to actual one.
Jon Voight, playing the Mormon bishop zealot who instigated the massacre, is mean, bitter, murderous. Terence Stamp, as Brigham Young, doesn't fare much better. There is no mention of his speaking against robbing - much less killing - emigrant trains (although he did declare martial law and forbade the crossing of the Territory four days after the massacre).
Of all the Mormons, only one (fictitious) character has any redeeming value. Trent Ford is the bishop's son - handsome, intelligent, a horse-whisperer, falls in love with one of the "Gentiles" ("You're not Jewish?" she asks when he says the "you people are Gentiles"), and does impossibly heroic deeds that you see telegraphed from a mile away.
Predictable, obvious, often silly, with a painfully poor script ("I curse the Gentiles, grrrrr!"), "September Dawn" not so much exposes fanaticism as lays an egg in a fanatical crusade of its own.
From that "neutral" point of view, "September Dawn" appears a sandwich of a film, with a purpose on top, a biased view on the bottom, and a poorly made movie in-between. This meant-to-be controversial film about another shameful "9/11," a Mormon massacre of 120 innocent men, women and children in Utah on Sept. 11, 1857, is open about its agenda: "(The Mountain Meadows story) closely resembles the religious fanaticism the world is seeing today. People were killed in the name of God 150 years ago and they're still being killed in the name of God." So says the director, Christopher Cain.
Mountain Meadows was the stopping place for a wagon train on the Old Spanish Trail from Arkansas (and Missouri, so the Mormons might have believed) on the way to California. What is an established historical fact is that Mormon militia, together with Indians pressed into the fight, killed most of the would-be settlers in cold blood.
"September Dawn" mentions in passing some of the many factors involved - such as the killing of church-founder Joseph Smith by a mob in an Illinois jail, the Mormons' fear of federal troops moving against them, and so on - and yet the entire film is simply a blanket indictment of the church. People on the wagon train are uniformly kind, decent, altogether wonderful; the Mormon leadership is consistently and grossly evil. It's not a matter of good people turning bad, but rather a boring straight line from expected evil to actual one.
Jon Voight, playing the Mormon bishop zealot who instigated the massacre, is mean, bitter, murderous. Terence Stamp, as Brigham Young, doesn't fare much better. There is no mention of his speaking against robbing - much less killing - emigrant trains (although he did declare martial law and forbade the crossing of the Territory four days after the massacre).
Of all the Mormons, only one (fictitious) character has any redeeming value. Trent Ford is the bishop's son - handsome, intelligent, a horse-whisperer, falls in love with one of the "Gentiles" ("You're not Jewish?" she asks when he says the "you people are Gentiles"), and does impossibly heroic deeds that you see telegraphed from a mile away.
Predictable, obvious, often silly, with a painfully poor script ("I curse the Gentiles, grrrrr!"), "September Dawn" not so much exposes fanaticism as lays an egg in a fanatical crusade of its own.