Of Movies, Serious, Unserious, Fun, And Not So Fun

Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland — A poster for the 1938 film (Wikimedia Commons public domain, fair use)

Many nights, we watch a film with our granddaughter. We’ve watched all of the classic Disney cartoons and a host of others, some classic and some, well, not quite so classic. We’ve watched Mary Poppins and the live versions of Beauty and the Beast and Mulan and so on and so forth.

Tonight, we watched the classic 1938 movie The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Rains. It’s been quite a while since I last watched it, but it holds up surprisingly well for a movie that is now — incredibly — nearly ninety years old. The performances are good, the script is often witty (“You speak treason!” “Yes. Fluently!”), and the (1938!) Technicolor is still lush, as is Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s score.

Opern ohne Singen, Korngold called his film scores. “Operas without singing.” And no less a modern film composer than John Williams has acknowledged his debt to Korngold, who returned to the United States from an opera-conducting gig in his native Austria in order to work on The Adventures of Robin Hood and then remained in America until the end of the Second World War. A Jew, he was no longer either welcome or safe in his home country after the Anschluss.

But The Adventures of Robin Hood has a special significance for me and my wife: Our first date was to the Mexican restaurant El Azteca, which was once located just south of Brigham Young University. (I still regret its closing, though many years have now passed. Its banana punch was luscious.) And then we caught a screening of the film back up on campus.

Either the Russell family or NOT the Russell family. — A typical Latter-day Saint family in an upscale suburb of today’s Salt Lake City.
(Wikimedia CC public domain image)

Meanwhile, the Hollywood onslaught against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shows little sign of easing up. So I share here an opinion column written by Sarah Jane Weaver, the editor of Salt Lake City’s Deseret News: “Opinion: The ‘Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ does not represent me: To ignore every bit of reality on ‘Reality TV’ — especially related to something as sacred as the faith of millions of people — is hurtful, unfair, unkind and mischaracterizes religion”

Editor’s note: This perspective was originally published Sept 16, 2024, and is being repromoted as episodes of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” will begin airing on ABC.

A very upset Martin Harris — Martin Harris (portrayed by Lincoln Hoppe), following the loss of 116 manuscript pages of the translated Book of Mormon, at the Smith family table. A still photo by James Jordan from the set of the Interpreter Foundation’s 2021 movie, “Witnesses.”

I’m pleased that Hank Smith and John Bytheway, in Episode 5, Part 2, of their popular Follow Him podcast for this year — this installment featuring Professor Robert Eaton for a discussion of Doctrine and Covenants 3-5 — make very favorable mention of the Interpreter Foundation’s 2021 theatrical film Witnesses. The reference to Witnesses comes at about the 2:35 mark and continues for not quite a full minute.

Incidentally, as we enter into a Come, Follow Me curriculum year that is devoted to the Doctrine and Covenants and to the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the collection of resources that were accumulated by the Interpreter Foundation as part of its overall Witnesses film project might potentially be very helpful to students and teachers. Here is one small illustration of those resources: Episode 15: “Are Prophets Perfect?”

Witnesses of the Book of Mormon—Insights Episode 15: God uses human beings as his leaders on the earth. Do these people need to be perfect to be prophets, seers, and revelators? This is Episode 15 of a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. . . . These additional resources are hosted by Camrey Bagley Fox, who played Emma Smith in Witnesses, as she introduces and visits with a variety of experts. These individuals answer questions or address accusations against the witnesses, also helping viewers understand the context of the times in which the witnesses lived. In this installment, we feature Gerrit Dirkmaat, Associate Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University. For more information, go to https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/. Learn about the documentary movie Undaunted—Witnesses of the Book of Mormon at https://witnessesundaunted.com/.

And please don’t forget that Undaunted is now available for free streaming at The Witnesses Initiative.

World War Two propaganda poster — Throughout Utah — and, no doubt, across the Western states generally — hundreds of thousands if not millions of listeners gather by their radios every Sunday night, seeking wisdom from the Interpreter Radio Show. They’re never disappointed.
(Wikimedia CC public domain image)

Interpreter Radio Show —January 19, 2025, including Doctrine and Covenants in Context D&C 10-11

In the 19 January 2025 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Bruce Webster, Kris Frederickson, and Martin Tanner discussed Come, Follow Me Doctrine & Covenants lesson 7, BYU employment standards, and NetFlix’s American Primeval. Their conversation was recorded. It has now been edited (to remove commercial interruptions), archived, and made available to you online and at no charge.

The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard on Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640. Or, if that doesn’t work for you or if (for whatever reason, whether good or bad) it simply doesn’t float your boat, you can also listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com.