Linda Darnell and Tyrone Power sharing a wagon on the trail to the Salt Lake Valley

Brigham Young: Frontiersman (1940) – Hollywood’s Mormon Epic

When plucked by Daryl F. Zanuck from Paramount to helm the production of 1940’s Brigham Young, director Henry Hathaway initially told Zanuck that “the two dullest things are wagon trains and religion”. Despite Hathaway’s and others’ correct assertion that the project didn’t scream box …

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Faust (1926) and The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)

Legends become so enmeshed in the cultural consciousness that they appear in numerous forms and adaptations centuries after their initial creation. The German folktale Faust is one such tale, inspiring dozens of books, plays, operas, and films since its first iteration in 16th-century German literature. …

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Vincent Price as Joseph Smith in Brigham Young (1940)

The Hollywood studio system was an intricate, and well-oiled machine in the 1930s and 40s, an oligarchy of a handful of studios that controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of films with an iron fist. During their height, movie studios scrupulously controlled the careers and …

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