Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011 Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011
Volume 19 Number 2 Article 14
2007
Massacring the Truth Massacring the Truth
Craig L. Foster
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Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1989–2011
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Massacring the Truth
Craig L. Foster
FARMS Review 19/2 (2007): 137–76.
1550-3194 (print), 2156-8049 (online)
Review of September Dawn (2007), produced by
Christopher Cain; and September Dawn (2007), by
Carole Whang Schutter.
Titl e
A uthor( s)
Reference
ISSN
Abs tract
M T
Review of Christopher Cain (producer). September Dawn (a motion picture released by
Black Diamond Pictures in 2007).
Review of Carole Whang Schutter. September Dawn. Self-published through Author -
House, 2007. 276 pp. $19.95.
I
n the classic Western movie e Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,
Senator Ranse Stoddard tells the small-town newspaper reporter
the true story of the shooting of Liberty Valance and his own rise to
prominence. At the end of the movie, the journalist slowly tears up his
notes. Stoddard asks if he’s going to use the story. e reporter answers,
“No, sir.” He then explains that his late editor used to say, “is is the
West! When the legend becomes a fact, print the legend.”
at statement appears to be the mantra of Christopher Cain with
his new movie, September Dawn, which was released on 24 August
2007. Advertised as a “Romeo and Juliet relationship love story . . . set
against the background of the controversial real-life massacre of 120
men, women and children traveling through Utah in the nineteenth
century,” the movie, as Cain says, “closely resembles the religious
fanaticism the world is seeing today. People were killed in the name of
1. “e Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” summary of lm found at http://www
.orac.net.au/~mhumphry/libvalan.html (accessed 9 March 2007). e lm, starring John
Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, and Lee Marvin, was released 11 April 1962.
Craig L. Foster
138 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
God 150 years ago and they’re still being killed in the name of God.”
e ocial September Dawn Web site advertised the lm in even more
sensational terms:
On September 11, 1857 in an unspoiled valley of the Utah
Territory—and in the name of God—120 men, women and
children were savagely murdered.
Who ordered the massacre, and why, has been hidden in a
cloak of secrecy and conspiracy.
And the reputation of one of the nation’s mightiest religious
gures has been preserved and protected.
Until now.
e movie was created by Christopher Cain and his Aspen,
Colorado, friend Carole Whang Schutter. According to Schutter, she
approached Cain with the story she had been writing, and he told her
it “[didn’t] look like a screenplay.” e two began to work together on
a screenplay, which included a fanciful Romeo and Juliet relationship,
with the son of a Mormon bishop falling in love with the beautiful girl
from the wagon train. “en it felt like a movie to me,” Christopher
Cain said.
But romance was not all Cain felt the movie needed. He wanted
more controversy. “At the core of the controversy is the notion that
the Mormon church, and church leader Brigham Young himself,
sanctioned the killings.” In fact, Christopher Cain and others associ-
ated with the movie seem to have sought controversy through their
2. Murray Weissman & Associates (press release), “Christopher Cain’s ‘September
Dawn,’ Starring Jon Voight and Terence Stamp, About 1857 Mountain Meadows
Massacre, Opens Wide on May 4,” Los Angeles, 24 January 2007, http://uk.us.biz.yahoo
.com/iw/070124/0207147.html (accessed 26 January 2007).
3. Murray Weissman & Associates press release, p. 5.
4. Stewart Oksenhorn, “Aspen screenwriter experiences miracle with ‘September
Dawn,’ ” Aspen Times, 24 August 2007, http://www.aspentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20070824/AE/108240060/-1/rss01 (accessed 7 December 2007).
5. Sean P. Means, “A foggy ‘Dawn,’ ” Salt Lake Tribune, 23 August 2007, news archive
at http://www.sltrib.com (accessed 12 December 2007).
6. Oksenhorn, “Aspen screenwriter experiences miracle with ‘September Dawn.’ ”
C, S, S D (Foster) • 139
interviews and statements, beginning with some of the earliest articles
about the movie.
Recognizing potential for publicity, the director and producers of
September Dawn even attempted to link Mitt Romney’s presidential
campaign to their movie. In March 2007 they held a special screening
of the lm and invited reporters to interview Jon Voight. And while
they kept insisting the movie had nothing to do with Romney’s cam-
paign, articles began to appear with titles like “Will New Anti-Mormon
Movie Hurt Mitt?” and “Mitt Romney campaign eyes Mormons’
9/11 movie.” In fact, according to a news article, “Promo spots for
the ick include a nod to the presidential campaign with the sugges-
tion that we’re at a point in history ‘when issues of Mormonism are
in heightened areas of the news.’ ” e Romney campaign expressed
displeasure at the wording in the advertisement. “at statement
alone ‘obviously is directed at our campaign,’ ” an anonymous source
complained. Reporters happily took the bait and began hounding
the Romney campaign for a statement.
Shortly before the movie premiered, Mitt Romney nally responded
by telling the Associated Press, “at was a terrible, awful act carried
out by members of my faith. ere are bad people in any church and
it’s true of members of my church, too.” Even so, Romney said he had
7. John Anderson, “With Only God Le as a Witness,” New York Times, 22 January
2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/movies/22ande.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (ac-
cessed 17 April 2006).
8. Means, “A foggy ‘Dawn.’ ”
9. Nikki Finke, “Will New Anti-Mormon Movie Hurt Mitt?” LA Weekly, 29 March
2007, http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/could-new-movie-impact-mitts-campaign
(accessed 29 November 2007).
10. “Mitt Romney campaign eyes Mormons’ 9/11 movie,” e Spoof, 6 May 2007,
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s4i18379 (accessed 7 May 2007).
11. James Hirsen, “A Political Look at Hollywood,” e Le Coast Report, 21 August
2007, an e-mail sent by “Hollywood Condential,” from newsmax@reply.newsmax.com.
12. Bill Zwecker, “Mitt’s a bit mied: Film about 1857 Mormon massacre due out
Aug. 24 and likely to have negative impact on his campaign,” Chicago Sun-Times,
16 August 2007, http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/zwecker/512514,CST-FTR-
zp16.article (accessed 16 August 2007).
13. Manya Brachear, “What was behind Sept. 11?” Chicago Tribune, 24 August 2007,
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/religion_theseeker/2007/08/sept-11-movie-r.html
(accessed 26 August 2007).
140 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
no plans to watch the movie, to which Christopher Cain commented
cynically that the lm might help his candidacy because Romney “has
somewhere in the area of 30% of the American public who say they
won’t vote for a Mormon. And perhaps this is an opportunity for him
to deal with (that) 30% of the American public.”
On a recent segment of the Hugh Hewitt Show, Jon Voight
commented:
Let me say that the LDS Church just came out very recently,
and perhaps because of the lm, with a rather comprehen-
sive statement that was by their managing director of family
and Church history, the department there, and his name is
Richard E. Turley. . . . Very, very strong statement that really
parallels everything that we have in the lm, right up to the
door of Brigham Young. It doesn’t pass that threshold, but it
really does a very, I think, a very scholarly job of describing
the events.
In addition, a report of an interview with Scott Duthie, one of the mov-
ie’s producers, suggested that September Dawn “forced the church’s
hand,” noting that the church “published several articles on the mas-
sacre, painting an unattering picture of past leaders who ordered the
crime.” “Actually, to their credit, that was great,” Duthie said. “ey
itemized and took accountability for what happened.”
Both Voight and Duthie seemed to be unaware that Richard E.
Turley, Ronald W. Walker, and Glen M. Leonard have been working
for over six years on what promises to be the denitive work on the
Mountain Meadows Massacre. e rst volume of this work, which
14. Etan Vlessing, “Director says ‘Dawn’ would help Romney,” e Hollywood
Reporter, 25 August 2007, http://hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/
e3id4e927e2a226195f0859186f5a0de3 (accessed 29 November 2007).
15. Hugh Hewitt Show Transcript, Townhall.com, 22 August 2007, http://www.hugh
hewitt.townhall.com/talkradio/transcripts/Transcript.aspx?ContentGuid=af9cb8fb-
dd4e-4a56-99cl-ab75686fd459 (accessed 29 November 2007).
16. Martin J. Kidston, “Independent vision,” Helena Independent Record, 26 August
2007, http://www.helenair.com/articles/2007/08/26/helena_life_top/c010826_01.txt (ac-
cessed 26 August 2007).
C, S, S D (Foster) • 141
has been tentatively titled Massacre at Mountain Meadows, will be
published in 2008 by Oxford University Press.
In the autumn of 2006 Cain and some of his associates attended
a meeting of relatives of massacre victims, oering a special viewing
of the lm and interviewing relatives for a series of featurettes. ese
featurettes, later included on a DVD, include provocative sound bites,
such as one calling the Mountain Meadows Massacre “a crime against
humanity” and another describing it as “one of the most important
historical events in the history of America’s westward expansion.”
One descendant claimed that “the Mormons have covered this up. If
they have their way, this would be forgotten.” Another said, “e
Mormons have an agenda,” and added that “too much has been cov-
ered up for so many years” and “the LDS Church will be held respon-
sible for getting out the truth.” “Religious fanaticism and extremism
is a dangerous thing,” said another.
Dean Cain, the director’s son, has been an enthusiastic supporter
of his father’s lm. As early as September 2005 he had announced,
“It’s hush-hush what’s going on with the lm. It’s going to be very
controversial.” Since that time, he has made other comments to the
press emphasizing the controversial nature of the lm. On an episode
of the Rachael Ray Show that aired on 11 December 2006, he again
indicated that it would be controversial. In an article in the National
Ledger, Dean Cain explained that his father “just wants people to see
the movie and draw their own conclusions.” He stated further:
17. “Featurette,” chap. 2, September Dawn EPK (electronic press kit), a Black Diamond
Pictures and Alkemi Production DVD sent by a public relations rm and in the posses-
sion of the author. is quotation is from Cheri Baker Walker.
18. “Featurette,” chap. 2. is quotation is from Scott Fancher.
19. “Featurette,” chap. 12. is quotation is from Phil Bolinger.
20. “Featurette,” chap. 12. ese quotations are from Harley Fancher.
21. “Featurette,” chap. 12. is quotation is from Scott Fancher.
22. Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel, “Dean Cain is Everywhere, Wayne Gretzky Has a
New Gig,” National Ledger, 27 September 2005, http://www.nationalledger.com/cgi-bin/
artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=1&num=912 (accessed 6 December 2007).
23. “It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s . . . Dean Cain!” e Rachael Ray Show, http://www
.rachaelrayshow.com/show/view/63 (accessed 9 April 2007).
24. Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith, “Dean, Christopher Cain in Mormon Film
Controversy,” National Ledger, 4 April 2007, http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/
142 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
I think that some people will be very oended, by the lm and
by the slaughter. I think some people will protest it. I think
people will think that it’s untrue. I think that some people will
think that it demonizes Mormons and the Mormon religion.
. . . Some people will say, hey, it’s great, someone’s nally tell-
ing the truth. People will have to nd out more about it.
Christopher Cain likewise insisted that the lm was about religious fanat-
icism. “I’m not attacking the Mormon Church. is was an incident that
happened in history. It’s an incident that happens today by radicals.”
Cain’s protestations notwithstanding, both the book and movie
versions of September Dawn appear to have a darker intent than to
simply comment on contemporary religious fanaticism and terrorism.
With that in mind, I will look at both the movie and the book, focus-
ing on the book and the featurette DVD. I revised some parts of this
essay aer viewing the lm version. I have also added new informa-
tion because the movie contradicted the novelized version released a
few months in advance. My not viewing the movie before the national
opening, however, was certainly not due to a lack of eort on my part.
I called the public relations rm handling the lm at least six times,
and during ve of those phone calls I asked if it would be possible to
go to a screening or have a “screener” or DVD sent to me so I could
review the lm. I was continually but very cordially put o. On my last
phone call, I was told there would be no more showings and that the
producer had “asked for no screeners to be sent out.” When I said that
seemed odd, the representative repeated twice that she didn’t “under-
stand their logic.” I didn’t either until I saw the actual movie.
publish/printer_12532.shtml (accessed 4 April 2007).
25. “Featurette,” chap. 10.
26. “Featurette,” chap. 10.
27. Telephone conversation with Lindajo Lous of Murray Weissman & Associates,
31 July 2007. Murray Weissman & Associates is an independent marketing and public
relations rm located in North Hollywood, California. e rm has, according to its
Web site at http://www.publicity4all.com/bios.html, represented hundreds of motion
picture and television projects, including Chicago, Chocolat, Dances with Wolves,
Empire of the Sun, Enchanted April, e English Patient, Farewell My Concubine, Field
of Dreams, Good Will Hunting, GoodFellas, Mighty Aphrodite, e Piano, Pulp Fiction,
and Shakespeare in Love.
C, S, S D (Foster) • 143
Who Made September Dawn?
Christopher Cain was born Bruce Claibourne Doggett in 1943 in
Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Like many other people in the entertain-
ment industry, Bruce Doggett changed his name, Christopher C. Cain
being his choice. Cain grew up on the Doggett family farm, north
of Hartford, South Dakota. His parents, Douglas and Jeanette Holt
Doggett, as well as his grandparents, were active in the community
and church. Douglas, like his father, served for a number of years on
the administrative board of the Hartford United Methodist Church,
and he also served as a choir director, Sunday school teacher, and lay
speaker for a number of years.
Christopher Cain graduated from Hartford High School in 1961
and attended Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota,
where he graduated in 1965. Soon he made his way to Hollywood,
“hoping to break into music, but instead found himself singing back-
up on TV commercials.” Aer switching to acting and appearing in a
number of television shows, he turned to directing. Aer writing and
directing several family lms in the 1970s, Cain directed e Stone
Boy in 1983. e lm, described by one lm critic as “powerfully
done,” made many of the critics’ “top ten” lists for the year, and Cain’s
career appeared to be on the fast track.
“Known for his visual style as well as his keen portrayals of
human interaction,” Cain next directed at Was en . . . is Is
28. Sioux Valley Genealogical Society, “Index to Births, 1880–1990, of Sioux Falls,
South Dakota” (Salt Lake City: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1991), Family
History Library lm 1738664; and http://www.superiorpics.com/christopher_cain (ac-
cessed 11 February 2007).
29. Sue Boy, Hartford, S. D., Centennial, 1881–1981 ([Freeman, SD: Pine Hill Press],
1981), 104.
30. “Young Alumnus/Alumna of the Year,” Dakota Wesleyan University, http://www
.dwu.edu/alumni/previous/young_year.htm (accessed 13 February 2007).
31. “Christopher Cain,” http://www.hollywood.com/celebrity/Christopher_Cain/188994
(accessed 2 June 2006). Reviews of this lm are found at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/
stone_boy/?critic=columns (accessed 8 November 2007). According to Box Oce Mojo,
found at http://boxocemojo.com/movies/?id=stoneboy.htm (accessed 15 February 2007),
the domestic total gross for the lm was $261,033.
32. “Christopher Cain: Director, Actor, Producer, Scriptwriter,” http://www.allocine.co
.uk/personne/chepersonne_gen_cpersonne=19090.html (accessed 31 January 2007).
144 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
Now (1985), which received mixed reviews. Where the River Runs
Black (1986), while not a box oce success, won praises for its artistic
accomplishments. Cain gained enough respect in Hollywood to be
asked to direct a Western with several of the popular young stars of
the 1980s.
Young Guns (1988) was Cain’s most protable directorial turn,
grossing $45,661,556 and starring such actors as Emilio Estevez,
Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Charlie Sheen, as well
as iconoclast Terence Stamp. Popular among the viewing audiences,
the lm received mixed reviews from critics. As one wrote, “Young
Guns supposedly takes place in the old west, but it actually takes place
in front of the cameras. . . . Young Guns doesn’t have a good reason
to exist besides an excuse for these hot young Turks to look good
onscreen.” Hal Hinson bemoaned the fact that “ ‘Young Guns’ plays
out less as a movie than as a sort of fraternity frolic.” Christopher
Cain’s directing also came under scrutiny. Gregory Dorr described
the lm as a “pimped-up smudge of pop history” that “plays like luke-
warm late-’80s kitsch.”
33. Please see the reviews found at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/that_was_
thenthis_is_now (accessed 8 November 2007). According to Box Oce Mojo, http://
www.boxocemojo.com/movies/?id=thatwasthenthisisnow.htm (accessed 28 March
2007), the domestic total gross for the movie was $8,630,068.
34. Roger Ebert, “Where e River Runs Black,” 19 September 1986, http://rogerebert
.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19860919/REVIEWS/609190304/1023
(accessed 28 March 2007). According to Box Oce Mojo, http://boxocemojo.com/
movies/?id=wheretheriverrunsblack.htm (accessed 15 February 2007), the domestic total
gross for the movie was $676,166.
35. Box Oce Mojo, http://boxocemojo.com/movies/?id=youngguns.htm (accessed
15 February 2007).
36. Box Oce Mojo, http://boxocemojo.com/movies/?id=youngguns.htm (accessed
15 February 2007).
37. Jeremiah Kipp, “Young Guns,” http://lmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/84dbb
fa4d710144986256c290016f76e/738f6a5e3320729d88256d0c005ce8a8?OpenDocument
(accessed 26 January 2007).
38. Hal Hinson, “Young Guns,” Washington Post, 16 August 1988, http://www
.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/younggunsrhinson_
a0c8d5.htm (accessed 26 January 2007).
39. Gregory P. Dorr, “Young Guns: Special Edition,” e DVD Journal, http://www
.dvdjournal.com/quickreviews/y/youngguns.q.shtml (accessed 22 February 2007).
C, S, S D (Foster) • 145
In spite of the critical views, Young Guns was popular with the
viewing audiences, and Christopher Cain was at the height of his
career. Oddly enough, when Young Guns II was made the next year
and released in 1990, Cain did not direct it. Instead, he directed
Wheels of Terror, a made-for-TV movie that has the dubious distinc-
tion of being ranked among the three hundred worst movies. Jason
MacIsaac wrote that Cain’s “resume doesn’t contain many things that
will make you swoon, but his career was semi-respectable until of late.
Now he’s got things like e Amazing Panda Adventure (1995) and
Gone Fishin’ (1997) under his belt. Yeah, ouch.” Billed as a buddy
movie, Gone Fishin’, which starred veteran actors Joe Pesci and Danny
Glover, has been described as “the Ishtar of the 90s.” Between 1997
and the making of September Dawn, Cain directed four pictures,
two of which were for television. He directed three episodes of USA
Network’s e Magnicent Seven in 1998 and 1999 and the made-for-
TV movie A Father’s Choice in 2000. Although two other theatrical
lms were advertised and appear to have had some lming completed,
they were never released.
e Cain-Schutter Connection
e person who introduced Cain to the idea of making a lm
about the Mountain Meadows Massacre—and who wrote the screen-
play with him—was his friend Carole Whang Schutter. She and her
40. “Young Guns II,” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100994/fullcredits#cast (accessed
29 March 2007). e director was Geo Murphy.
41. “e Worst 300 Movies Part 3,” Epinions.com, 3 August 2004, http://www
.epinions.com/content_4034699396 (accessed 8 November 2006).
42. Jason MacIsaac, “Wheels of Terror Review,” Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension,
15 October 1999, http://www.jabootu.com/wot.htm (accessed 8 November 2006).
43. Tom Keogh, “Gone Fishin’: Reviews: Amazon.co.uk Review,” http://www.amazon
.co.uk/Fishin-Christopher-Glover-Rosanna-Arquette/dp/B00004CVX8 (accessed 11 February
2007). Chris Hicks of the Deseret News in a telephone interview on 30 March 2007 called
Gone Fishin’ an “absolutely terrible lm.”
44. “Christopher Cain,” Internet Movie Database (IMDb), http://www.imdb.com/
name/nm0128883/ (accessed 4 April 2007).
45. ere is no evidence Tender Touch of Evil (1999) and PC and the Web (2001) were
ever released.
146 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
second husband, Monte H. Goldman (who died in 1995), had been
prominent socialites in Aspen, Colorado, where Cain also lived.
Carole Schutter stated that while her husband and his brother
were very wealthy, they did not know Jesus. “I once had everything
money could buy but nothing is of more value to me than the love that
the Lord Jesus Christ gave to me.” She further explained, “I look to
God to guide me in all things. I’ve surrendered everything to Him and
meditate daily upon God’s wonderful promises. I stand upon those
promises no matter what the devil brings against me. e battle isn’t
mine, but the Lord’s.” e Honolulu Star-Bulletin announced:
ere’ve been some major changes in the life of Carole Whang
Schutter. e ex-wife of attorney David Schutter and widow
of millionaire playboy Monte Goldman, who shot and killed
himself, Carole has become a born-again Christian. She’s just
written a book called “Miracles Happen,” sub-titled, “A Prayer
Guide for Desperate People.” Her message is simple—no mat-
ter how bad things are, there’s always hope.
She has also written a number of essays about nding God, in addi-
tion to her 1999 book, Miracles Happen. is book discusses the
importance of faith, prayer, and miracles. She has had her faith tried
and strengthened by dicult experiences that included sons with drug
and legal problems and being defrauded out of almost $120,000.
46. “Testimony of Carol [sic] Schutter,” http://www.bibleprophecyrevealed.us/2001/
carolschutter.html (accessed 8 November 2007).
47. “Testimony of Carol Schutter.”
48. Dave Donnelly, “Hawaii,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1 July 1999, http://starbulletin
.com/1999/07/01/features/donnelly.html (accessed 24 January 2006).
49. “Run to Him,” http://www.miracleshappen.com (accessed 24 January 2006); “What
Is Your Season?” http://www.sermonillustrator.org/minisermons/folder1/WHAT%20IS%20
YOUR%20SEASON.htm (accessed 26 January 2007); “Testimony of Carol Schutter.”
50. “Schutter lands in county jail,” Aspen Daily News, 11 January 2005, http://www
.aspendailynews.com/print_9972 (accessed 15 June 2006); “Schutter awaits arraign-
ment in Jeerson County Jail,” Aspen Daily News, 4 December 2006, http://www
.aspendailynews.com/print_17157 (accessed 9 February 2007); and Joel Stonington,
“Socialite sued in fraud case,” Aspen Times, 29 August 2006, http://www.aspentimes
.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060829/NEWS/108290030&se (accessed 26 January
2007).
C, S, S D (Foster) • 147
Of September Dawn, Schutter said, “It’s an extremely controversial
movie. It takes place in the rst act of religious terrorism in the United
States.” She claimed she “got the idea for the movie when she was
driving between Buena Vista and Salida through country that looks
very much like site [sic] of the Mountain Meadows massacre. She didn’t
know it at the time.” Instead, she explained, “I got this crazy idea to
write a story about a pioneer woman going in a wagon train to the
California gold rush, and the train gets attacked by Mormons dressed
as Indians. e idea wouldn’t leave me. I believe it was from God.”
Schutter began doing research. “I came across the Mountain
Meadows massacre and I was blown away,” she said. “I thought, ‘Holy
cow—this isn’t made up in my mind. is is real.’ I got really into it.
I cried and cried when I read about the story.” She insists she had
never heard of the massacre before she began researching it. “Why
would it just explode in my mind all of a sudden?” she asked.
With evangelical zeal, Carole Schutter wrote a script about the
massacre. She claims that her screenplay becoming a movie is nothing
short of miraculous:
I found the nature of terrorism especially intriguing and rel-
evant today. Creating likeable characters that take part in
unimaginably atrocious acts is a chilling reminder that ter-
rorists can be anyone who chooses to blindly follow fanatical,
charismatic leaders. I believe we should examine the leaders
we follow that we might not be misled.
Our ght is not against certain religions or “esh and blood,”
as the Bible says, but “against principalities and powers of
darkness” which are prejudice, hate, ignorance, and fear
51. Pete Fowler, “Local pens screenplay about massacre,” Aspen Times, 9 July 2007, as
quoted at http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20070709/AE/70709002 (accessed 31 July
2007).
52. Fowler, “Local pens screenplay about massacre.”
53. Fowler, “Local pens screenplay about massacre.”
54. Fowler, “Local pens screenplay about massacre.” e article states that Schutter
“thinks it’s very odd that the Mountain Meadows massacre fell on the same day of the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but she said people can draw their own conclusions. ‘It is
strange that it’s the same day, isn’t it?’ ”
148 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
perpetuated by leaders who history will surely judge by their
deeds.
While appreciative of the help Christopher Cain gave her in turn-
ing her script into what she describes as “a stirring, evocative movie
that will force people to think about the nature of terrorism,” she is
grateful also for divine aid:
Most of all, I am grateful to the Lord Jesus Christ who took
one of the “foolish things of the world to confound the wise.”
In a world where only 1.1% of all screenwriters ever get a
movie made, Jesus gave me a miracle. He turned me into a
screenwriter and fullled a lifelong dream of being an author.
ank you, Jesus. What He did for me, He can and will do for
you, if you never give up, and simply believe.
e movie, billed as “a romance played out against a drama of a
mass murder that continues to engender controversy almost 150 years
aer the fact,” includes a combination of real and ctional charac-
ters. e synopsis of the lm, as provided by Murray Weissman &
Associates, the public relations rm representing the movie, is inter-
esting in what it does and does not say:
Captain Alexander Fancher (Shaun Johnston) is leading
his third wagon train overland to California in the spring of
1857. For Fancher, an Arkansas militiaman, it would be his
last trip, as this time he is bringing his family with him to
settle down on the rich Gold Coast of California.
Mormon Bishop Jacob Samuelson’s (Jon Voight) fam-
ily compound just outside Cedar City, Utah is home to his
many wives and children, particularly his beloved oldest
son, Jonathan (Trent Ford), and adored second son, Micah
(Taylor Handley).
55. “About Me: Carole Whang Schutter,” http://www.carolewhangschutter.com/
about.html (accessed 25 July 2007).
56. “About Me: Carole Whang Schutter.”
57. “About Me: Carole Whang Schutter.”
58. John Anderson, “With Only God Le as a Witness.”
C, S, S D (Foster) • 149
Run out of Missouri a decade earlier, victims themselves
of massive persecution, including the murder of their Prophet
Joseph Smith (Dean Cain), the Mormons are now on edge
when “Gentiles”—a term used by the Mormons for anyone
not of their faith—cross into their territory. Rumors are cir-
culating that President Buchanan is sending US Army troops
to displace Territorial Governor Brigham Young (Terence
Stamp) from his post. Young, in turn, has declared martial
law, warning his church members to be prepared to turn back
interlopers by any means.
When the Fancher wagon train stops in Mountain
Meadows in early September, they are rst met by Mormon
deacon John D. Lee (Jon Gries) and his Danites (a group of
extreme LDS vigilantes). Urged by Lee to leave the encamp-
ment, Fancher stands fast and continues to plead for compas-
sion, as his teams need to refresh and rest.
Bishop Samuelson intervenes and allows the wagon train
to stay in the valley for two weeks. e Bishop commands Lee
to oer help to the settlers, while at the same time instructing
his son Jonathan to spy on them, hoping to ascertain their
true intent. In the meantime, the Bishop makes his way to the
Elders in Cedar City and asks for divine guidance.
Jonathan is only too happy to accommodate his father’s
wishes, for he was captivated the rst day by the angelic smile
of a beautiful young girl on the wagon train. e minister’s
daughter, Emily (Tamara Hope) and her family are traveling
with the wagon train on their way to a new life. Generous in
spirit and kind in nature, Emily helps the settlers by caring for
the younger children on the train. . . .
By the time the Bishop returns to the encampment,
Jonathan and Emily have declared their love and commit-
ment to each other. Still, Bishop Samuelson has other plans.
e Church declares the wagon train to be enemy combatants
who must be killed. Against Church teachings, as the Bishop
incites his followers to prepare for the blood atonement of
150 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
those killed earlier in Missouri, Jonathan urgently and franti-
cally tries to quell the fury.
Unable to make his father see reason, Jonathan and Emily
have one last moment where they can share their commitment
and Jonathan’s pledge to move with her to California. e two
young lovers share tokens of their promise and privately bond
themselves to each other.
Planning to slip away at dawn to join the wagon train,
Jonathan is instead ambushed by his father, locked up in
chains and is anxiously close to being killed himself. . . .
Jacob rst persuades the local Paiute Indians to attack the
wagon train, accompanied by some of his own men disguised
as Indians. e settlers are able to repulse the onslaught and,
aer losing many of his own men, the Indian chief withdraws,
realizing that he has been duped by the Bishop.
As the settlers help their own wounded and wait for the
next onslaught, John D. Lee comes to them under a ag of
truce. Telling them that he will lead them to safety if they will
follow him and leave their wagons and possessions behind, he
instead leads them into a brutal ambush.
When Jonathan can at last escape and make his way to the
encampment site, he encounters a scene more vicious than any
from Dante’s Inferno. Horried at the sight, a distraught Jonathan
begins the torturous search for Emily among the bodies. What
he nds will put him squarely in the crosshairs between love and
death—and test the will of God against the will of man.
eater or History?
Christopher Cain insists that the lm was not meant to attack
Mormons. “I’m comfortable that historically this movie is as accurate
as you would want a theatrical movie to be,” he said. Cain’s state-
59. Murray Weissman & Associates press release, pp. 5–6.
60. “September Dawn: e Making of . . .” YouTube.com, http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=OKy6mVq_ANA (accessed 31 July 2007).
C, S, S D (Foster) • 151
ment might not be too comforting given Hollywood’s record of por-
traying the past. Hollywood is known for “skewing historical events
to t audience proles and li prot margins.” For example, no
mention was made in Saving Private Ryan of British and other Allied
troops who also landed in Normandy on D-Day, and British subma-
riners were replaced by Americans in the movie U-571. A British
historian called these Hollywood distortions “shameless and totally
irresponsible—a grotesque distortion of history.”
Film portrayals of the American West are also far from real.
Hollywood’s West is lled with outlaws, gunghts on Main Street,
Indian battles, and violence. But this is what the viewing audience
has been taught to expect and enjoy. As one historian noted, “We are
surrounded in the United States by a mythology of our own creation
that frontier violence forged the essential American character.”
While there certainly was a culture of honor, which included violent
acts, these incidents were not the norm. With Hollywood, however,
when it comes to “image versus reality, image usually wins.” It is dif-
cult for those writing about historical events to “compete with the
media’s power to form popular views of reality through visual impact.
Granted, no one really expects lms to be historically accurate.”
Unfortunately, Hollywood not only skews history for prot but also
distorts it for even darker reasons. Some supposedly accurate movies
replace “an accepted, well-supported version of an historical event with
a ‘new improved’ version that exists less because of its accuracy than
because of its advocates’ biases.” While biases are oen political in
61. Cahal Milmo, “1066 and all that: how Hollywood is giving Britain a false sense of
history,” e Independent, 5 April 2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/
article54671.ece (accessed 5 April 2007).
62. “Historians: Hollywood distorts facts,” AlJazeera.net, 3 September 2004, http://
english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=5529 (accessed 5 April 2007).
63. “Historians: Hollywood distorts facts.”
64. Michael A. Bellesiles, “Guns Don’t Kill, Movies Kill: e Media’s Promotion of
Frontier Violence,” Western Historical Quarterly 31/3 (2000): 285.
65. Bellesiles, “Guns Don’t Kill, Movies Kill,” 284.
66. “e Ethics of Changing History: Of Crockett, the Titanic and ‘One Small Step,’ ”
Ethics Scoreboard, 10 October 2006, http://www.ethicsscoreboard.com/list/history.html
(accessed 26 January 2007).
152 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
nature, they can also be religious. “Ever since Hollywood’s self-imposed
censorship code began to fade in the ’60s, religion and the religous [sic]
have been portrayed in negative stereotypical terms.” is is particu-
larly true with Christianity; various denominations have come under
attack in Hollywood movies. Some lms depict other religions in a posi-
tive light while portraying Christianity negatively. Regarding such
negative stereotyping, one writer argued that an analy sis of Hollywood
lms with religious themes or characters reveals that in the last four
decades Hollywood has portrayed Christians as sexually rigid, talk-
ing to God, disturbed, hypocritical, fanatical, psychotic, dishonest,
obsessed, dumb, manipulative, phony, neurotic, mentally unbalanced,
unscrupulous, destructive, foulmouthed, and fraudulent; and their roles
have ranged from slick hucksters, fake spiritualists, Bible pushers, Adam
and Eve as pawns in a game between God and Satan, Catholic school-
boys run amok, miracle fabricators, and deranged preachers to outlaws,
devil-worshipping cultists, Bible-quoting Nazis, and murder suspects
(including an unbalanced nun accused of killing her newborn infant).
Few, if any, positive portrayals of Christians were found in Hollywood
lms released in the last four decades.
“Trapped by the Mormons”
Latter-day Saints have long been the victims of negative stereotyp-
ing in Hollywood movies. From the earliest days of motion pictures,
67. Chris Hicks, “Nobody knows less about religion than lmmakers,” Deseret News,
23 April 1999, http://www.desnews.com/cgi-bin/cqcgi_state/@state.env?CQ_SESSION_
KEY=VXOETMGGQXNC&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=90&CQ_TEXT_MAIN=YES
(accessed 11 December 2007).
68. An excellent example of a blatantly biased lm is Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven
(2005). According to “Hollywood’s Crusade Against History,” Christian Action For
Reformation & Revival Magazine, http://www.christianaction.org.za/articles_ca/2005-2-
hollywoodcrusadeagainsth.htm (accessed 6 December 2007), the movie “distorts history
beyond all recognition.” It purposefully distorts known events and historical aspects by
depicting the Christians doing some of the things the Muslims actually did, such as col-
lecting tribute taxes that allow Christians and Jews, or dhimmis as they are known, to
practice their religion in Muslim-controlled countries. e lm reects Scott’s dislike for
religion, Christianity in particular.
69. John W. Cones, What’s Really Going On in Hollywood (Los Angeles: Rivas Canyon
Press, 1997), http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/whats.htm#3 (accessed 12 April 2006).
C, S, S D (Foster) • 153
lms depicting supposed Mormon fanaticism have appeared. One
of the better-known movies from the silent era was A Mormon Maid
(1916), which used a familiar plot device found in earlier and later anti-
Mormon lms—“an innocent non-Mormon family with an attractive
daughter caught up in the machinations of the polygamous Elders.”
Since the 1960s, Mormons have for the most part been portrayed
as “simply caricatures designed for easy jokes and general disdain.”
While this approach has continued, there has also been another
technique to portray the Saints as violent and dangerous. ere have
been several lms focusing on this theme, and one of the more egre-
gious was a made-for-TV movie entitled e Avenging Angel (1995),
with Tom Berenger starring as a professional Mormon bodyguard
out to stop a plot by other Mormons to assassinate Brigham Young.
e movie had the usual negative stereotype of the Saints as fanatics
living in a strange, foreboding place and following strange religious
practices, such as polygamy.
September Dawn certainly ts this format by portraying Mormon-
ism in exaggerated, stereotypical imagery. For example, the Saints
70. Richard Alan Nelson, “A History of Latter-day Saint Screen Portrayals in the
Anti-Mormon Film Era, 1905–1936” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1975),
28. According to Nelson, pp. 21–22, 95, some of the earliest lms included Mormonens
Oer (A Victim of the Mormons, 1911), Mormonbyens Blomst (e Flower of the Mormon
City, 1911), e Mormons (1912), e Mountain Meadows Massacre (1912), e Danites
(1912), A Study in Scarlet (1914), and A Mormon Maid (1916).
71. Nelson, “History of Latter-day Saint Screen Portrayals,” 103. Among the other
lms using this plot line are Mormonbyens Blomst (1911), e Mormons (1912), A Study
in Scarlet (1914), Trapped by the Mormons (1922), and Married to a Mormon (1922).
72.
Chris Hicks, “Films portray Mormons in an ugly light,” Deseret Morning News,
18 May 2007, http://deseretnews.com/dn/print/1,1442,660221510,00.html (accessed
10 July 2007). Hicks asked, “Why does it always seem to be open season on the LDS
Church?” in another essay, “TV portrayal of Mormons mean, callous,” Deseret Morning
News, 6 May 2005. Near the end of his essay he asked, “Why would a mainstream TV
show openly ridicule a sacred symbol of any religion?” Even Mormon-made lms have
caused controversy between Latter-day Saints and Evangelicals over whether Mormons
and their lms are really Christian. “Latter-day Complaints: Mormons and evangelicals
fret over movies, politics, and each other,” Christianity Today, 1 July 2006, http://www
.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=38401 (accessed 18 April 2007).
73. “e Avenging Angel (1995),” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112423 (accessed
8 August 2007).
154 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
are pictured as fanatical and violent individuals who repress women,
believe in strange doctrines and rituals, and worship a false Christ.
Not surprisingly, the Mountain Meadows Massacre is portrayed as a
plot of pure evil planned at the top and executed to destroy good and
innocence.
Violence in Nineteenth-Century America
Although Carole Schutter claims to have spent four years research-
ing the subject before writing the screenplay, the movie contains
glaring historical inaccuracies, claiming, for example, that Brigham
Young “transported 16,000 people to the Rocky Mountains . . . in one
wagon train.” In fact, according to the Mormon Pioneer Resource
Study, it took from 1847 to the middle of 1851 before 16,000 people
had immigrated to Utah. Again, Jonathan Samuelson was supposed
to have seen Brigham Young preach in the Salt Lake Temple, but the
temple was not nished until 1893, almost sixteen years aer Young
died. Schutter and the other creators of September Dawn also described
the First Presidency as “the level immediately below the oce of the
Prophet,” but the prophet is actually a part of the First Presidency.
She also had Joseph Smith and other Latter-day Saint leaders prac-
ticing plural marriage while they were still in Kirtland, Ohio, but
plural marriage on a large scale was not practiced until about 1843,
when the Latter-day Saints were centered in Nauvoo, Illinois. Schutter
74. For various studies on Mormons and lm, see BYU Studies 46/2 (2007), a special
issue devoted to this subject.
75. “Most controversial movie since Mel Gibson’s e Passion of the Christ?” RNS
Press Release, Religion News Service, 1 August 2007, http://www.religionnews.com/
press02/PR073107B.html (accessed 6 August 2007).
76. Carole Whang Schutter, September Dawn (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse,
2007), 136. Most of the quotations and references are from Schutter’s novelized version
of the screenplay, September Dawn. AuthorHouse is a self-publishing company (www
.authorhouse.com [accessed 26 November 2007]).
77. Mormon Pioneer Historic Resource Study, National Park Service (2003), http://
www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/mopi/hrsab.htm (accessed 18 August
2007).
78. Schutter, September Dawn, 133.
79. Schutter, September Dawn, 37.
80. Schutter, September Dawn, 75
C, S, S D (Foster) • 155
also described Missouri’s “Mormon War” as starting when Latter-day
Saints “attacked state troops” in October 1838. She did not, however,
mention that state militia served on both sides of the skirmish nor that
the reason the Latter-day Saints approached Samuel W. Bogart’s mili-
tia camp was that he and his men had kidnapped two Latter-day Saint
men who the Saints feared were going to be executed. e supposed
“attack” was a rescue mission, and gunre occurred on both sides, with
several Latter-day Saints being wounded and three being killed.
Perhaps more troubling is Schutter’s failure to mention what has
come to be called the Haun’s Mill Massacre, in which state militia
attacked a Latter-day Saint settlement and killed nineteen men, includ-
ing a ten-year-old boy who begged for his life. Moreover, the events
in Missouri and Illinois were portrayed as if they were completely the
fault of the Latter-day Saints. “Mob brutality exploded and found its
way from Independence to Far West, Missouri. . . . Joseph [Smith] ulti-
mately betrayed his own people by inciting them to violence in a frenzy
of self-righteous fury with his demands of complete subjection to god
and his commands.”
e creators of September Dawn portrayed the Latter-day Saints
as aggressors deserving mob reciprocation. In fact, descriptions and
images of beatings, castrations, and murders permeate the lm—for
example, dark images of Danites, “oen dressed as Indians,” bursting
into houses, dragging “sinners out of their beds, slitting their throats
from ear to ear,” and exacting other types of severe punishment.
Even more insidious than the murders, as portrayed by the movie,
“the Mormons had an unusual form of punishment for men accused
of sexual sins—castration.”
81. Schutter, September Dawn, 86.
82. For an in-depth discussion of the Mormon-related conicts in Missouri,
see Stephen C. LeSueur, e 1838 Mormon War in Missouri (Columbia: University of
Missouri Press, 1990).
83. For more information on the Haun’s Mill Massacre, see Alma R. Blair, “e
Haun’s Mill Massacre,” BYU Studies 13/1 (1972): 62–67.
84. Schutter, September Dawn, 86.
85. Schutter, September Dawn, 106.
86. Schutter, September Dawn, 107.
156 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
ere were, of course, examples of extralegal punishment for sex-
ual and other serious crimes in territorial Utah. For example, in 1846
Daniel Barnum and Peletiah Brown were whipped for “carnal com-
munication” with some young women. But the legal punishment was
death. In 1856 one of the more controversial incidents took place
when omas Lewis of Manti was taken by a group of men on his
way to the territorial penitentiary for some unspecied sexual crime,
probably fornication, and castrated. Another man named John Beal
was castrated in 1858 for adultery.
Most cases of extralegal punishment, however, were retribu-
tion for seductions and rapes. e precedent-setting case was that of
Howard Egan, who in 1851 killed James Monroe. Monroe had had an
aair with Egan’s rst wife, Tamson. Monroe wisely chose to get out of
town before Egan returned home from a journey to California. Egan,
however, followed Monroe and caught him close to the Utah border,
where he shot and killed him.
Egan was later brought to trial, where he was defended by George A.
Smith. During the closing arguments, Smith argued, “In this territory
it is a principle of mountain common law, that no man can seduce the
wife of another without endangering his own life.” He then continued,
“e principle, the only one, that beats and throbs through the heart
of the entire inhabitants of this territory, is simply this: e man who
seduces his neighbor’s wife must die, and her nearest relative must kill
87. Juanita Brooks, ed., On the Mormon Frontier: e Diary of Hosea Stout, 1844–1861
(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press and Utah Historical Society, 1964), 1:190–91.
88. Elizabeth Lewis Jones to Brigham Young, 2 November 1856; Elizabeth Lewis
Jones to Brigham Young, 8 November 1856; and Elizabeth Lewis Jones to Brigham
Young, 9 November 1856, Brigham Young Papers, Bx 69, fd 7, Family and Church History
Department Archives, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereaer Church
Archives). Brigham Young responded by stating he had been told that omas Lewis
was “wilful wicked and ungovernable.” Brigham Young to Elizabeth Jones, 13 November
1856, Brigham Young Papers, Bx 69, fd 7, Church Archives.
89. Brooks, On the Mormon Frontier, 2:663.
90. Kenneth L. Cannon II, “ ‘Mountain Common Law’: e Extralegal Punishment
of Seducers in Early Utah,” Utah Historical Quarterly 51/4 (1983): 310–11. For other
examples of extralegal punishment in territorial Utah, see Craig L. Foster, “e Butler
Murder of 1869: A Look at Extralegal Punishment in Utah,” Mormon Historical Studies
2/2 (2001): 105–14.
C, S, S D (Foster) • 157
him!” Egan was acquitted, and during the following decades, several
husbands and fathers who killed seducers or rapists used Smith’s argu-
ment as the basis for their actions. Obviously, extralegal punishment
of this nature would certainly not be condoned today. It was not, how-
ever, limited to Utah. Nor was extralegal punishment of this nature a
strictly local means for enforcing local mores—it was common across
the United States and its territories and was much more accepted in the
nineteenth century than in the present.
Some examples may help give a better picture of the culture at that
time. In 1886 in Walla Walla, Washington, a man tried to rape a young
girl but was stopped. While he was never brought to trial, a group of
men later abducted him and tried him for rape. He was not seen again
until his corpse was found hanging from a tree. In 1850s Morgan
County, Missouri, a resident poisoned a spring used by the schoolchil-
dren, several of whom died from the poisoning. His neighbors chased
him, brought him back, and hanged him at the schoolhouse.
Extreme violence over real or imagined attacks against a person
and his honor was not uncommon. is was particularly true in the
South, where tradition emphasized the need to preserve one’s honor,
especially in regard to female members of a man’s family. Southern
states were also the site of intense anti-Mormon activity, particularly
in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when there were over
three hundred instances of anti-Mormon violence
, including meet-
ings being broken up by mobs, property destroyed, beatings, whip-
pings, tar and featherings, shootings, and murders. Such activities
were not only accepted but even encouraged. In 1886 the Alabama
91. Deseret Evening News, 15 November 1851, as quoted in Cannon, “Mountain
Common Law,” 312.
92. e Washington Statesman account of the lynching is published in “Walla Walla
in the 1860s: Violence,” Western Places: A Chronicle of Western Settlement 2 (October
1993): 33.
93. Gerard Schultz, Early History of the Northern Ozarks (Jeerson City, MO:
Midland Printing, 1937), 144–45.
94. Patrick Q. Mason, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Mob: Violence Against
Religious Outsiders in the U. S. South, 1865–1900” (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame,
2005), 280.
95. Mason, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Mob,” 281.
158 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
Baptist published an editorial insisting that “it is Mormonism itself
that is to be hated, to be feared, to be crushed.”
No part of the country was free of extralegal violence, usually in
the form of vigilantism. Such states as Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa had
strong vigilante groups, but even stronger ones were found in such
western states as California, Texas, and Montana. In addition, the
Missouri-Arkansas border country, where most of the members of the
Baker and Fancher wagon train came from, witnessed extreme vigi-
lantism between 1884 and 1892.
Interestingly, extralegal violence in Utah “was rare compared to
that found in other frontier communities.” For example, “within six
months of arriving in California in 1849, one in every ve of the 89,000
gold seekers was dead, an astonishing statistic.” And it has been esti-
mated that there were 4,200 murders in California between 1849 and
1855. “e city of Marysville reportedly had seventeen murders in a
single week, prompting the formation of a vigilance committee.”
Danites
Tales of Danite intimidation and violence notwithstanding, Utah
never reached the level of violence of the mining and frontier com-
munities in surrounding states and territories. ere were certainly
forms of vigilante justice in Utah, but not to the extent of its neigh-
bors. Nor was vigilantism perpetrated by Danites (mispronounced
with a long a in September Dawn), who were “a defensive paramilitary
organization” created to assist the Saints during the religious violence
leading up to the so-called Mormon War in northwestern Missouri in
96. Mason, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Mob,” 127. According to Mason, the
editorial appeared in the Alabama Baptist, 22 April 1886.
97. “e Legal History of Utah,” Utah History Encyclopedia, http://www.media.utah
.edu/UHE/l/LEGALHISTORY.html (accessed 2 May 2007).
98. David T. Courtwright, “Violence in America,” American Heritage 47 (September
1996): 40. Certainly not all of the deaths were from violence. Disease, mining accidents,
and other factors were also causes of death. Even so, a high percentage of deaths resulted
from violence.
99. Courtwright, “Violence in America,” 44.
100. Courtwright, “Violence in America,” 44.
C, S, S D (Foster) • 159
1838. e head of the two known units that composed the Danites was
Sampson Avard, who, unbeknownst to Joseph Smith and other Latter-
day Saint church leaders, altered the original defensive purposes of
the Danites by using “initiation rites and secret oaths of loyalty and
encouraged subversive activities.”
While Joseph Smith was aware of the Danites, he was not aware
of their more violent and destructive operations. Nevertheless, Danite
tales had been created, and stories of their atrocities were plentiful
throughout the nineteenth century. Anti-Mormon ction writers cre-
ated fanciful accounts of rampaging Danites committing murder in
the name of God. “By 1900 at least y-six anti-Mormon novels alone
had been published in English, incorporating one or more aspects of
the Danite myth, beginning with the false assumption that there was
a functioning Danite organization in Utah.”
September Dawn relies upon the old anti-Mormon stereotypes of
Danites. In visual imagery reminiscent of the Ring-wraiths from the
Lord of the Rings movies, Danites appear throughout the movie wreak-
ing havoc. We are told, for instance, that John D. Lee was a Danite and
was “aware of the lengths the church went to in order to keep their
people in line and strengthen the position of the men in power.”
ere is no doubt that, as early as 1847, Brigham Young did
appoint “a few ‘rough-rider’ type minute men” who “were on call for
Indian uprisings and immigrant problems.” But “there were never
‘70 Destroying Angels’ appointed by Brigham Young” to roam the
territory and terrorize people, nor was there even one organized band
of Danites. But the imagery of Brigham Young’s “Destroying Angels”
101. Arnold K. Garr, et al., eds., Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 2000), 275. For further reading on the origins and activities of the
Danites, see Leland H. Gentry, “e Danite Band of 1838,” BYU Studies 14/4 (1974):
421–50.
102. Rebecca Foster Cornwall and Leonard J. Arrington, “Perpetuation of a Myth:
Mormon Danites in Five Western Novels, 1840–90,” BYU Studies 23/2 (1983): 149.
103. Schutter, September Dawn, 102–3, 148.
104. Lynn M. Hilton and Hope A. Hilton, “Danites,” Utah History Encyclopedia,
http://www.media.utah.edu/UHE/d/DANITES.html (accessed 13 April 2007).
105. Hilton and Hilton, “Danites.”
160 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
was appealing to readers and, later, lmgoers and apparently contin-
ues to capture the imagination.
Misrepresentation of Temple Ceremonies
September Dawn also portrays Mormonism as a non-Christian
cult with strange doctrines and rituals by focusing on presumed
eccentricities, particularly the temple ceremony. ese portrayals are
lled with sensationalism, stereotypes, and innuendo. In both the
movie and the book, Jonathan Samuelson is taken to the Latter-day
Saint temple in Cedar City, where he is forced to endure rituals. e
most obvious problem with this scenario is that there never has been
a temple in Cedar City. In 1857 there was no Latter-day Saint temple
anywhere, only the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. e creators
cannot claim ignorance on this matter because Schutter, according to
Sandra Tanner of Utah Lighthouse Ministry, phoned her and “asked
about the temple ritual.” During this conversation Tanner explained
that Salt Lake City would be where the endowment ceremony would
have taken place.
A temple placed in the wrong setting is not the only misleading
scene related to the temple. Another scene depicts Jacob Samuelson in
a temple meeting working a group of men into a rage, with all of them
“screaming and chanting with frenzied fury, ‘Blood atonement! Blood
atonement!’ ” Even Sandra Tanner felt this was “a little over the top.”
But, as she explained several times, she only had some casual tele-
phone conversations with Carole Schutter, she never read the screen-
play, and she didn’t see lm clips until the movie was completed and
she and others were invited to a private screening.
Where did Carole Schutter and Christopher Cain come up with
these ideas? ey drew upon Increase Van Dusen’s temple exposés as
the primary source for this part of the movie. What they either did
not know or chose to ignore was that Van Dusen suered from mental
106. Schutter, September Dawn, 112–16.
107. Telephone interview between Craig L. Foster and Sandra Tanner (15 August 2007).
108. Telephone interview between Foster and Tanner.
109. Telephone interview between Foster and Tanner.
C, S, S D (Foster) • 161
and emotional problems. Even aer publishing several tracts expos-
ing the temple ceremony, he was still aliated with James J. Strang
and his group (who had broken o from the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints). is aliation continued until personal conicts
between Strang and Van Dusen over the latter’s 1849 publication of a
tract containing his own revelations caused Van Dusen’s banishment
from the Strangites.
September Dawn also contains numerous references to oaths of
vengeance supposedly taken by Latter-day Saints. For example, at
the very beginning Jonathan Samuelson is pictured as knowing it
was “his duty to expose the deantly anti-American oaths taken by
members.” During the scenes of the temple ceremony, the partici-
pants spoke in unison as they made their nal vows:
We promise to never question the commands of the authorities
in the church and promise instant obedience. We swear ever-
lasting enmity to the United States government and promise
to disregard its laws as far as possible. We vow to exert every
eort to avenge the death of our Prophet Joseph Smith and
his brother Hyrum on the Gentile race and on this American
nation. We vow to teach our children and our children’s chil-
dren to foster this spirit of revenge. e penalty for anyone
who breaks or reveals this oath is excruciating torture. ey
shall have . . . their throats cut from ear to ear; and their hearts
and tongues will be cut out. In the world to come, they will
inherit eternal damnation. ere will be no chance of salva-
tion for them.
Typically, Schutter has relied on a few well-used nineteenth-
century anti-Mormon sources rather than plumbing the many primary
documents relating to this topic. While there are reports that the Saints
sometimes prayed for the Lord to execute vengeance on their enemies
110. Craig L. Foster, “From Temple Mormon to Anti-Mormon: e Ambivalent
Odyssey of Increase Van Dusen,” Dialogue 27/3 (1994): 283–84.
111. Schutter, September Dawn, xiii.
112. Schutter, September Dawn, 115–16.
162 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
(in a spirit reminiscent of Psalm 83:13–17 and Revelation 16:4–7), there
is no evidence that they took an oath to seek vengeance themselves.
Plural Marriage
e way plural marriage is depicted in September Dawn is merely
a rehash of stereotypes used since the days of the nineteenth-century
penny tracts and tell-all novels “exposing” Mormon polygamy. ere
are numerous references to polygamy in the movie (and the book)
that play up sexual stereotyping. For instance, in a scene in the movie,
Jacob Samuelson, as the bishop, walks along a row of Mormon men
prepared to attack the wagon train and anoints the forehead of each
man, repeating how they would be honored “with a polygamous king-
dom in the last days.”
The book also employs the stereotype of the misery of the
lesser wives:
Bands of impoverished polygamists roamed the countryside
with their many wives, some of them girls barely in their teens,
married to men in their sixties. Starving and dressed in rags,
they tagged aer their “Father,” as they called their husbands,
carrying their naked babies on their hip. e famine of 1856,
caused by the locusts, had le some families so poor even the
older children ran around unclothed. It was not uncommon
to see the younger wives of wealthy Mormons walking bare-
foot to church. As younger wives, they were nothing more
than servants to the rst wife and whoever the “Father’s” cur-
rent favorite wives were.
e book thus creates the impression that all Latter-day Saint women
wanted to escape plural marriage but were too frightened to try.
113. See http://www.fairwiki.org/Oath_of_vengeance (accessed 25 October 2007).
114. Schutter, September Dawn, 4–5.
115. Schutter, September Dawn, 138–39. Women’s fear of being punished for running
away from polygamy is reinforced in September Dawn by the blood atoning of Jonathan
Samuelson’s own mother, who ran away from an unnamed apostle aer she was forced to
become his plural wife. Her blood-atoning is described on pages 101–3.
C, S, S D (Foster) • 163
Clichés related to polygamy abound in September Dawn. e
Mormon apostle who stole Jonathan Samuelson’s mother away from
Jacob Samuelson, her rightful husband, is described as “a fat old
man with piggish eyes.” In explaining Brigham Young’s having at
least twenty-seven wives, Jonathan states matter-of-factly, “Women
feel honored to marry him.” Again, when Jacob Samuelson and
John D. Lee go to report the massacre to Brigham Young, they arrive
at the Beehive House. “Next to it was the magnicent, sprawling Lion’s
House, which housed Brigham’s harem.” Note that harem is used
to describe Brigham Young’s large family. Since the mid-1800s, anti-
Mormon writers have compared Mormons to Muslims, particularly
using imagery of captivity, sensuality, and sexuality, which have long
played an important part in the Western world’s perception of Islam
and its adherents. Muslims have been viewed as “irredeemably lust-
ful and therefore immoral. is negative image was in the eighteenth
century complemented by another, again largely imagined, dimension
of the Middle East as an exotic area with romantic longing, harems,
Turkish baths and eunuchs. Middle Easterners were seen as inherently
licentious.”
Anti-Mormon literature oen described Brigham Young as one
who “glories in his shame, so as to make every friend of modesty and
morality blush for him, and sigh over his evil example.” Mormon
leaders were characterized as “conspicuously obscene, profane and
116. Schutter, September Dawn, 56.
117. Schutter, September Dawn, 142. e book goes on to include how Jonathan
Samuelson, having grown up with polygamy, “had automatically accepted the practice.
He wondered why this Mormon mandate suddenly seemed distasteful to him. Perhaps
the Gentiles have the right idea, he thought, immediately feeling disloyal.”
118. Schutter, September Dawn, 231. Of course, what Schutter calls the “Lion’s House”
was and still is called the Lion House.
119. Craig L. Foster, Penny Tracts and Polemics: A Critical Analysis of Anti-Mormon
Pamphleteering in Great Britain, 1837–1860 (Salt Lake City: Greg Koord, 2002), 165.
120. Sabine Schmidtke, “Review of Sexual Encounters in the Middle East: e British, the
French and the Arabs, by Derek Hopwood,” Die Welt des Islams, n.s., 41/1 (2001): 121.
121. Dawson Burns, Mormonism, Explained and Exposed (London: Houlston and
Stoneman, 1853), 26.
164 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
immoral” and as “lecherous old scamps,” and the women were
described as “panderers to . . . lust.” Such movies as Trapped by the
Mormons and A Mormon Maid employed this imagery; September
Dawn does the same, showing John D. Lee and Brigham Young argu-
ing about a woman Lee loves but whom Young insists on marrying as
a plural wife.
Joseph Smith is portrayed in even worse terms. He is said to have
justied his indelities with teenage girls “by announcing he had a
revelation from God that the Heavenly Father had not only sanc-
tioned, but encouraged, polygamy.” Of course, Joseph Smith’s plural
marriages with teenagers are mentioned with appropriate shock and
disgust. Carole Schutter and the other creators of September Dawn
have fallen into the same trap that even some historians fall into—
projecting their values onto people of another era.
While Americans today react with disgust at the thought of older
men marrying teenage women, it was much more common in earlier
centuries. Peter Laslett, the prominent social historian, has noted, for
example, that in eighteenth-century Belgrade, Serbia, girls as young
as eleven and twelve were not only marrying but also having children.
Furthermore, 87 percent of all women between the ages of een and
nineteen were married, and one-third of een-year-old girls and
over half of all sixteen-year-old girls were married.
On the American side, it was common in newer regions of settle-
ment and farming in both the United States and Canada for women
to marry at a young age. Both brides and grooms were very young in
122. Albert King Morris, A Word of Warning to Young Women: e Unseen Hand of
Mormonism (Pittsburgh: e National Order of Anti-Polygamy Crusaders, ca. 1920), 4.
He also urged young women not to desert their home for “a place in one of the Mormon
harems” and to “forsake not the sacredness of [their] true womanhood.”
123. William Jarman, British Female Slaves, 2. is is an undated anti-Mormon tract
identied as no. 13 (in the author’s possession).
124. John Benjamin Franklin, e Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism; or, A Voice
from the Utah Pandemonium (London: C. Elliott, 1855?), 3.
125. Schutter, September Dawn, 73.
126. Peter Laslett, “Age at Menarche in Europe since the Eighteenth Century,” in
Marriage and Fertility: Studies in Interdisciplinary History, ed. Robert I. Rotberg and
eodore K. Rabb (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 291, 293.
C, S, S D (Foster) • 165
colonial America. For example, in seventeenth-century Chesapeake
Bay and environs, it was common for women to marry at age sixteen or
younger. Marriages at a young age continued with the American push
West, and while the marriageable age for both women and men has
risen over the years in the United States and other parts of the Western
world, there are still some ethnic and social groups that continue to
accept and even encourage marriages between young couples.
e Reality and the Illusion
e regrettable reality is that aer a week’s siege, on the morning
of 7 September 1857, Mormon militia talked members of the Baker
and Fancher wagon train into laying down their weapons and trusting
in the protection of the militia. en on 11 September the militia and
a group of Paiute Indians killed at least 120 unarmed men, women,
and children. is event provides the supposed reason for making
September Dawn—to tell the story of a tragedy that took place almost
150 years ago. Unfortunately, rather than provide a straightforward
account of one of the worst massacres in American history, the mak-
ers of the movie created a convoluted love story full of inaccurate
information. So eager were Carole Schutter and Christopher Cain to
portray this sad event with clichéd stereotypes that they garbled the
entire story, introducing many factual mistakes in the process.
From the outset, both minor and major historical inaccuracies
mar the lm. Mountain Meadows, for example, is represented as a val-
ley with tall trees alongside a wide river. But in reality there were very
few trees, at best just some scrub oak. Moreover, the source of water
was the small Magotsu Creek, located in a gully. Another problem is
the depiction of travel time when riding on a horse or in a wagon. In
one scene, Jacob Samuelson departs in a one-horse carriage to visit
127. Michael Gordon, ed., e American Family in Social-Historical Perspective, 3rd
ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), 16; and David Hackett Fischer, Albion’s Seed:
Four British Folkways in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), 674–75.
128. For a lengthier discussion on marriage ages and marriage customs in compari-
son to Mormons, see Craig L. Foster, “Doing Violence to Historical Integrity,” FARMS
Review 16/1 (2004): 149–74.
166 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
Brigham Young, telling his son he will be gone “two days, maybe
more.” But Salt Lake City is more than 250 miles north of Cedar
City, and riding hard and changing horses at every settlement up and
back would have taken at least ve or six days (and even then the rider
could have spent only a few hours in Salt Lake City). Furthermore, the
movie depicts Jonathan riding back and forth between Cedar City and
Mountain Meadows as if it is a twenty- or thirty-minute horseback
ride rather than approximately forty-ve miles.
e chronology and time frame of events have also been changed.
e wagon train arrived at the valley probably sometime around mid-
day or early evening on Saturday, 5 September. e emigrants had
a peaceful Sunday at the meadow and were attacked shortly before
dawn on Monday, 7 September. e book and movie have the wagon
train reaching the meadow at the end of August and resting there a
week before they were attacked.
Schutter and Cain needed the added time to have a relationship
develop between Jonathan and Emily, the “Romeo and Juliet” of the
movie. e likelihood of a romance springing up between the two is
improbable to say the least, even if they did have that extra week at
the meadow. Even Sandra Tanner told Carole Schutter that the idea
of a love-at-rst-sight romance was “improbable” and suggested that
the storyline have the two originally meeting in Arkansas. One fam-
ily could join the church and move to Utah, where the couple could
renew their romance when the wagon train passed through. is
idea did not appeal to Schutter. Instead, she had the wagon train arrive
at Mountain Meadows a week early in an attempt to make a far-fetched
scenario seem plausible.
Several other points are also overplayed. Aer Jacob and prac-
tically all of the community leaders in southern Utah make their
short trip to Salt Lake City, they meet with Brigham Young and vari-
ous Indian chiefs to plan the wagon train’s destruction. In the course
of their plotting, Brigham Young declares in a rather melodramatic
129. Schutter, September Dawn, 23.
130. Schutter, September Dawn, 1.
131. Telephone interview between Foster and Tanner.
C, S, S D (Foster) • 167
voice, “I am the voice of god, and anyone who doesn’t like it will be
hewn down.” “Enthralled, the assembly shouted, ‘Amen!’ ” But
contrary to Cain and Schutter’s assurances that everything their
“Brigham Young” utters is what the real Brigham Young said, there
is no source for Young having actually spoken those words. However,
Christopher Cain went as far as to say, “I didn’t write any of his dia-
logue,” claiming it was all found in Brigham Young’s depositions.
But I read Brigham Young’s deposition for John D. Lee’s second trial
without nding any hint of the above statement. (Nor was Sandra
Tanner able to nd it.)
at is not the only instance in which Brigham Young is mis-
quoted. A little later Young proclaims, “Now I will loose the Indians
upon them! And if any miserable scoundrels come here to our Zion,
cut their throats!” In a blatant act of misrepresentation, the creators
of September Dawn combined two dierent quotations, both taken out
of context. In his 16 August 1857 speech, Brigham Young complained
that the emigrants had “shot at every Indian they saw,” angering the
Indians to the point where Young felt he could not “keep them pea-
cable [sic].” He then announced that if an army came to Utah, he would
“not hold the Indians still while the emigrants shoot them, as they have
hitherto done, but [he would] say to them, go and do as you please.”
e other part of the quotation had nothing to do with loosing
the Indians. Brigham Young was speaking about the persecution the
Saints had experienced and about evil men coming to Utah to take
advantage of the Mormons:
132. Schutter, September Dawn, 39.
133. Schutter, September Dawn, 39.
134. Anderson, “With Only God Le as a Witness.”
135. “Deposition of Brigham Young, July 30, 1875 (for second trial of John D. Lee),”
Mountain Meadows Association, http://www.mtn-meadows-assoc.com/bydep.htm (ac-
cessed 21 August 2007).
136. Response to a 28 November 2004 letter to the editor, http://www.utlm.org/
onlineresources/letters_to_the_editor/2004/2004november.htm (accessed 21 August 2007).
137. Schutter, September Dawn, 42.
138. Brigham Young, speech in the old tabernacle on 16 August 1857. I thank Melvin
Bashore for providing these quotations.
168 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
We have the proof on hand, that instead of the laws being
honored, they have been violated in every instance of per-
secution against this people; instead of the laws being made
honorable, they have been trampled under the feet of lawyers,
judges, sheris, governors, legislators, and nearly all the o-
cers of the government; such persons are the most guilty of
breaking the laws.
To diverge a little, in regard to those who have persecuted
this people and driven them to the mountains, I intend to
meet them on their own grounds. It was asked this morning
how we could obtain redress for our wrongs; I will tell you
how it could be done, we could take the same law they have
taken, viz., mobocracy, and if any miserable scoundrels come
here, cut their throats. (All the people said, Amen.)
While the portrayal of events leading up to the actual attack
against the wagon train is inaccurate, that is nothing compared to the
ineptitude with which the wagon train members and the massacre
itself are handled. Christopher Cain claimed that while there is “some
ction” in the movie, the creators of the lm are “fairly accurate in
terms of the real story.” Cain ends up trivializing the members of
the Baker and Fancher wagon train, their fortitude in the face of a
horric attack, and, ultimately, their senseless murders.
Similarly, the rst victim in the movie is Nancy Dunlap, whom
Cain and Schutter depict as a pants-wearing, gun-toting woman who
earns the wrath of the Mormons. Her “bloody body” is discovered
the night before the actual attack, and they quickly see that “a part of
her scalp had been brutally cut away.” us forewarned, Captain
Fancher orders that the wagons be circled tight and the number of
outriders doubled.
139. Brigham Young, “e Kingdom of God,” Journal of Discourses, 2:311.
140. Paula K. Parker, “A Conversation with September Dawn’s Christopher Cain,”
BuddyHollywood.com, 15 August 2007, http://www.buddyhollywood.com (accessed
21 August 2007).
141. Schutter, September Dawn, 164–65.
142. Schutter, September Dawn, 166–67.
C, S, S D (Foster) • 169
What an insult to the courage and tenacity of the actual wagon
train members. In actuality, the attack Monday morning was a com-
plete surprise. e wagons and tents were spread out haphazardly by
family groupings near the creek, and the emigrants were unprotected
and in a very vulnerable position. Impressively, even in the face of a sur-
prise attack, they were able not only to defend themselves and force the
attackers back but also to move the wagons into a circle and start dig-
ging a wagon fort by piling up dirt embankments under and between
the wagons. To have them prepared the night before takes away from
their herculean accomplishments during what was no doubt the fren-
zied hysteria of the rst attack.
John D. Lee estimated that seven men were killed and three
wounded in the initial attack. More men probably died because the
pickets and herders were most likely killed before they could make it
back to the safety of the camp. Schutter, however, depicts a veritable
bloodbath of both sexes and all ages with more women being killed
than men.
Adding to the absurdity of this recounting of the massacre is the
scene portraying numerous Mormons attacking the wagon train on the
day of the rst attack. e historical data shows that Lee and perhaps
one or two other Mormon men were the only settlers at the meadow
during the rst attack. But even more ludicrous is how the lm por-
trays the Mormon men darkening their faces to look like Indians but
then making a full-on assault on the wagon train still wearing “white
men” clothing, including their hats (a few of which looked like the
old beaver-skinned top hats similar to what Abraham Lincoln wore).
How gullible do the makers of September Dawn think the wagon train
emigrants were? If the emigrants had seen men wearing that type of
clothing at the beginning of the week attacking and shooting at them,
would they have been so receptive and gullible on that fateful Friday?
143. Juanita Brooks, e Mountain Meadows Massacre (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1962), 70.
144. Brooks, Mountain Meadows Massacre, 70.
145. Schutter, September Dawn, 186–88. Among the women mentioned being killed
were Nancy Dunlap (killed the night before), Armilda Tackitt, Manerva Beller Baker, and
Sarah Baker Mitchell.
170 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
In the book, Schutter further demonstrates a lack of knowledge
regarding the actual emigrants. Several examples from the book will
suce. Twenty-two-year-old Amilda Tackitt was killed by an Indian.
“Out of nowhere, twenty-ve-year-old Charles Stallcup appeared.
Just the day before, he had conded to Emily that he planned to ask
Amilda to marry him before they reached California.” at cer-
tainly would have been interesting since both were already married—
and not to each other. Furthermore, Amilda appears to have sur-
vived death; she later surfaces alive and well under her actual name
of Armilda. “Alexander’s heart went out to all the young mothers,
like twenty-two-year-old Armilda Tackitt, who sobbed as she placed
William Henry, nineteen months, and Emberson Milum, four years,
in the wagon.”
Another wagon train member who should be dead isn’t. Saladia
Ann Brown Hu is described as carrying a dead baby and “scream-
ing as she attacked a Mormon guard” who has entered the wagon
fort. “Her four-year-old daughter, Nancy, was crying and clinging to
Saladia’s skirts, while Saladia’s husband, Peter, stood next to her, try-
ing to explain to the guard that the baby was already dead.” Since
Peter Hu died on the plains before the wagon train reached Salt Lake
City, his being at the meadow was quite miraculous but certainly
not impossible for writers intent on demonizing a religion.
In the lm, Cain has all of the men, women, and children happily
coming out of the protection of their wagon fort when John D. Lee and
others ride up with their white ag to talk them into surrendering.
But walking out in the open when the whereabouts of the Indians was
unknown would have been foolish, and the real emigrants did no such
thing. Cain nevertheless includes this scene in the movie. e movie
and book also include a rape scene—played out in detail in the book—
even though Juanita Brooks, among other reputable historians, has
concluded that “the whole suggestion of rape in this incident seems to
146. Schutter, September Dawn, 186.
147. Schutter, September Dawn, 210.
148. Schutter, September Dawn, 211.
149. “A Survivor of the Mountain Meadow Massacre,” Fort Smith Weekly New Era,
24 February 1875.
C, S, S D (Foster) • 171
be another example of how repeated suggestion and whisperings may
grow into more and more impossible tales, which are then passed on
as fact.”
Cain, Schutter, Voight, and others involved with September Dawn
have repeatedly claimed to have nothing against the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. “I don’t have an agenda with the Mormon
Church,” Cain said. “I made a movie about Mormons attacking a
wagon train; not me attacking Mormons.” Schutter begins her book
by stating, “roughout the ages, religious radicals have justied hor-
ric deeds by piously announcing that their crimes against humanity
were done in the name of God.” She then explains that the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has “a bloody past” but has
“reinvented itself from its brutal beginnings by becoming as blandly
non-threatening as the pictures of their founder, Joseph Smith.”
Although her attitude toward Mormonism is quite clear, Schutter
makes it even more overt by including the following scripture on the
page preceding the author’s note: “For we wrestle not against esh and
blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of the world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”
(Ephesians 6:12).
Schutter, as do some other conservative Christians, sees herself as
involved in spiritual warfare against the powers of darkness. “e ‘spiri-
tual warfare’ movement, born in the 1970s and 1980s in Californian
Evangelical and Pentecostal circles, gained international prominence in
1986 when the best selling novel is Present Darkness by Frank Peretti
was published. By 1991, one and a half million copies of the novel had
150. Brooks, Mountain Meadows Massacre, 105–6.
151.
Chris Lee, “Fanatics and a forgotten massacre,” Los Angeles Times, 19 August 2007,
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-ca-september19aug19,1,5904349,p
(accessed 20 August 2007).
152. Parker, “A Conversation with September Dawn’s Christopher Cain.”
153. Schutter, September Dawn, ix.
154. Schutter, September Dawn, x.
155. Schutter, September Dawn, xii.
156. Schutter, September Dawn, vii.
172 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
been sold.” Numerous Evangelicals were soon engaged in battling
the forces of evil. For Schutter, as well as others, that spiritual warfare
involves attacking the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
(Not surprisingly, some anti-Mormon groups quickly recognized the
polemical value of the movie. In fact, according to a posting on the
Internet titled “ ‘September Dawn’ as a deconversion tool,” an issue of
e Cross [Christians Reaching Out to Sincere Saints], “the bi-monthly
newsletter issued by the Arizona-based anti-Mormon organization
called Concerned Christians,” wrote that September Dawn would be a
good thing for the ministry; and Bob Betts, the author of the review,
expected “a urry of calls and e-mails from people, wanting more infor-
mation.” Betts also suggested readers “pray for all those who will watch
September Dawn.”)
Public Reaction to September Dawn
Fortunately, the movie’s anti-Mormon sentiments have not gone
unrecognized. Several movie reviewers have commented on the
anti-Mormon tone of the movie. Slant Magazine stated that the movie
“quickly feels less like an attempt at historical truth-telling than like
shameless anti-Mormon propaganda.” Weber State University pro-
157. Frank Peretti, is Present Darkness (Ventura, CA: Regal, 1986), as quoted in
Massimo Introvigne, “Strange Bedfellows or Future Enemies?: Is the split between the sec-
ular anti cult and the religious counter cult movement bound to grow into open antago-
nism?” Dialogcentret (October 1993), http://www.dci.dk/?artikel=200 (accessed 22 August
2007). Introvigne wrote in his essay that “even a cursory look at the Christian counter cult
literature would show that the single most targeted group is the Mormon Church.”
158. us the comment near the end of September Dawn (p. 252) about nding “the
real Jesus.”
159. Justin, “ ‘September Dawn’ as a deconversion tool,” Mormon Wasp, http://www
.mormonwasp.wordpress.com/2007/06/21/september-dawn-as-a-deconversion-tool
(accessed 12 July 2007).
160. Online posts about the movie have appeared at numerous Web sites, including
exmormon.org and mormontruth.blogspot.com. Well-known anti-Mormon John L.
Smith also discussed the movie in an article titled “New Film About Mountain Meadows,”
e Newsletter 3/28 (2006): 1. Some anti-Mormon groups immediately saw the polemical
value of the lm.
161. Nick Schager, “September Dawn,” Slant Magazine, 20 April 2007, http://www
.slantmagazine.com/lm/lm_review.asp?ID=2925 (accessed 7 May 2007).
C, S, S D (Foster) • 173
fessor and Mountain Meadows Massacre expert Gene A. Sessions
was quoted in a Boston Globe review saying, “is is a bit of salacious
trash, designed to sensationalize a terribly tragic event and horrible
atrocity as well as to exploit current anti-Mormon and anti-religious
sentiment that seems to be sweeping through popular culture.”
Scott Renshaw of the Charleston City Paper described the movie as
“unintentionally hilarious and borderline oensive.” “It does every-
thing but gasp and insist there are horns under the Mormons’ hats.”
He described the portrayal of Mormon leaders “cackling in cartoon-
ish villainy and twirling moustaches—er, beards” and concluded by
calling the lm a “historical tar-and-feathering” in which Cain had
portrayed Mormons as “homesteading Nazis,” adding an interesting
observation echoed by other reviewers: “By treating the Mormons with
such laughable contempt, he actually made me feel sorry for them.”
Other newspapers were similarly harsh in their criticism of what
they perceived to be blatant anti-Mormonism. e Clarion-Ledger
declared, “ough largely based on historic fact, September Dawn is so
ham-handed as to feel like blatant propaganda,” while well-known
lm critic Roger Ebert described the movie as “unbelievably ugly and
an insult to Mormons.” e Idaho Statesman accused Christopher
Cain of doing “a hatchet job on an entire religion” and said that his
movie was “devoid of objectivity.” Another reviewer insisted that
162. Michael Paulson, “Religious violence stirs a western,” e Boston Globe, 19 August
2007, http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2007/08/19/religious_violence_stirs_a
_western (accessed 5 December 2007).
163. Scott Renshaw, “Mountain Muddle: e inept September Dawn gets a good hate
on for Mormons,” Charleston City Paper, 22 August 2007, http://www.charlestoncity
paper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A31846 (accessed 5 December 2007).
164. Renshaw, “Mountain Muddle.”
165. Renshaw, “Mountain Muddle.”
166. Robert W. Butler, “Movie Review: September Dawn is blatant propaganda against
the Mormons,” e Kansas City Star, 24 August 2007, http://www.projo.com/movie_reviews/
lb_September_Dawn_08-24-07_L96QEF4.11cf7b6.html (accessed 6 December 2007).
167. “September Dawn,” Winston-Salem Journal, 23 August 2007, http://www
.journalnow.com (accessed 23 August 2007).
168. “September Dawn: Bias blurs fact and ction in this tale,” Idaho Statesman, 24
August 2007, http://www.idahostatesman.com/130/v-print/story/140812.html (accessed
24 August 2007).
174 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
“the jarring MTV-style lmmaking is so distracting and the ‘messag-
ing’ so unsubtle that aer two long hours you nd yourself leaving
the theatre with a massive headache, wondering when you started to
hate Mormons.” e trade newspaper Variety commented on how
“the pic is ultimately less interested in understanding its Mormon
characters than in demonizing them,” and the Kansas City Star
described the movie as a “stridently anti-Mormon and cliché-heavy
melodrama,” while the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune com-
plained that “the lm feels less like historical drama than a venomous
religious tract printed on celluloid.”
A powerful review expressing the disgust that many people felt for
the anti-Mormonism in the lm was published by a Christian-oriented
Web site whose reviewers are theologians, authors of Christian-oriented
literature, and commentators on Christian pop culture. In a review enti-
tled “September Dawn: A Nasty Trip Down History Lane,” the reviewer
wrote, “September Dawn is, simply put, one of the most shockingly poor
and mean-spirited lms of the year—despite the fact the lmmakers’
intentions are pretty noble.” He then continued by expressing frus-
tration at the lack of depth in the movie’s characters and the “black-
and-white anti-Mormon vision” of September Dawn. “I’m afraid I can’t
recommend September Dawn for much of anyone at all, as much as I
wanted to like the lm going in.”
169. Brett Register, “September Dawn,” Orlando Weekly, 23 August 2007, http://www
.orlandoweekly.com/lm/review.asp?rid=12972 (accessed 27 August 2007).
170. Justin Chang, “September Dawn,” Variety, 21 August 2007, http://www.variety
.com (accessed 22 August 2007).
171. As cited by Jacob Gordon, “ ‘September Dawn’ Opens to Negative Reviews,”
eCelebrityCafe.com, 25 August 2007, http://www.thecelebritycafe.com/features/11535
.html (accessed 26 August 2007).
172. Colin Covert, “September Dawn casts long shadows,” Star-Tribune, 23 August 2007,
http://www.startribune.com/1553/v-print/story/1378721.html (accessed 24 August 2007).
173. Greg Wright, “September Dawn: A Nasty Trip Down History Lane,” Past the
Popcorn: Films, and the Artists Who Make em, http://past-the-popcorn.gospelcom.net/
index.php/2007/september-dawn (accessed 24 August 2007). e reviewer is the manag-
ing editor of the Web site and is “Writer in Residence at Puget Sound Christian College
in Everett, Washington.” He is also an editor at HollywoodJesus.com and is a member of
Faith and Film Critics Circle.
174. Wright, “September Dawn: A Nasty Trip Down History Lane.” Not all religiously
oriented movie reviews, however, expressed disappointment with the lm. Harry Forbes,
C, S, S D (Foster) • 175
Particularly strongly worded reviews appeared on Collider.com
and in the Detroit News, respectively:
e point of the picture appears to be the blunt mockery of
the Mormon culture, but surely “Dawn” would be far more
controversial if it didn’t try so hard to be raw and unpleas-
ant. Cain has turned the Mormons into baby-eatin’ Nazis to
suit his argument, parading around these black-clad, chin-
bearded, testicle-slicing gunslingers without any thoughtful
consideration. To Cain, the Mormons were hulking, bor-
derline insane fundamental gorillas who ung excrement at
anyone daring to besmirch the name of Joseph Smith . . . and
led around . . . by a Zod-like deity in Brigham Young.
Director Christopher Cain . . . paints a damning, one-sided
portrait of Latter-day Saints in this irresponsible, ham-
sted morality tale that plays o our cultural ignorance of
the Mormon religion. If you think polygamy is a bit wacky,
wait until you learn Mormons are bloodthirsty, murderous
psychos! What’s worse, Cain shamelessly evokes Sept. 11 by
playing up the fact the massacre occurred on Sept. 11, 1857.
He stops short of calling Osama Bin Laden a Mormon sym-
pathizer, but maybe that’ll be on the DVD.
e references to Muslims were in reaction to the claim that
September Dawn is supposed to be a commentary on modern fanati-
cism and terrorism. Some reviewers suggested that Hollywood attacks
Mormonism because it is afraid to criticize radical Islamic jihadists.
Michael Medved agreed and explained that while Mormons were
in “September Dawn,” Catholic Online, 24 August 2007, http://www.catholic.org (accessed
24 August 2007), was generally complimentary of the movie. He ended with, “Whatever
the truth, the lm can at least be viewed, in generalized terms, as a warning against reli-
gious fanaticism of any stripe, a theme with great resonance in today’s world.”
175. Brian Orndorf, “September Dawn,” Collider.com: Latest Entertainment Stories, 23
August 2007, http://www.collider.com/entertainment/reviews/article.asp?aid=5265&tcid
=1 (accessed 24 August 2007).
176. “September Dawn,” Detroit News, 24 August 2007, http://www.detnews.com
(accessed 24 August 2007).
176 • The FARMS Review 19/2 (2007)
compared to Muslims with all of the implications of fanaticism and
violence, “Mormons won’t respond with any comparable rage [like
the deadly riots in 2006 over a dozen Danish cartoons making fun of
Islam], no matter how badly September Dawn tarnishes the memory
of their faith’s founders. . . . e measured response to public smears
of Mormonism in eect rebuts the September Dawn suggestion that
the church represents a relevant example of violent fanaticism.”
Like reviewers, moviegoers reacted negatively to September Dawn.
With 857 screens nationwide, the rst day’s gross was $182,000. By
Sunday evening, the total gross intake was $601,857. Subsequent
gures bore out the lm’s poor reception.
As for Carole Whang Schutter, in her zealousness to portray the
Latter-day Saints in a negative way, she has employed several anti-
religious stereotypes as well as Victorian pornographic imagery (in the
rape scene, for example). She has portrayed the Saints as fanatics who
are blindly obedient, who look on outsiders with suspicion and intol-
erance, and who belittle those not of their faith. Nevertheless, Schutter
claims to have felt called by God to research and write September
Dawn; she also claims her journey has been “a miracle.”
Cain and Schutter set out to make a controversial movie attack-
ing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and used the
Mountain Meadows Massacre as a backdrop. Unfortunately, contrary
to their noble statements about honoring the victims of the massacre,
the members of the fateful wagon train were nothing more than mere
stage props and pawns in this poorly executed anti-Mormon melo-
drama. Rather than memorializing the victims, the lm ultimately
dishonors their memory.
177. Michael Medved, “Hollywood’s terrorists: Mormon, not Muslim,” USA Today,
13 August 2007, http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070813/opledereligion81.art
.htm (accessed 6 December 2007).
178. “Daily Box Oce, for Friday, August 24, 2007,” http://boxocemojo.com/daily/
chart/?sortdate=2007-08-24&p=.htm (accessed 6 December 2007).
179. Fowler, “Local pens screenplay about massacre.”
180. Oksenhorn, “Aspen screenwriter experiences miracle with ‘September Dawn.’ ”
