Embedded Files
JOHN CARRADINE - "BRIGHAM YOUNG (FRONTIERSMAN)," 1940
With a big-budget; and an A-list cast consisting of Vincent Price (as Joseph Smith), Dean Jagger (as Brigham Young), John Carradine (as Porter Rockwell), and others like Tyrone Powers and Linda Darnell. However, it still bombed at the box office credited as being too religious for the audiences of the day.
John Carradine passed away in 1988 and is considered one of the greatest character actors in American cinema holding over 350 film credits. He was a member of Cecil B. DeMille's stock company and was a student of Shakespearean theater.
GREGG PALMER - "DEATH VALLEY DAYS: SON OF THUNDER," S18:E6, 1969
Death Valley Days is an American Western anthology series featuring true accounts of the American Old West, from 1952 to 1970
Gregg starred in dozens of television shows and many movies, including six films with John Wayne, the most notable role being John Goodfellow in “Big Jake”.
KEITH GURR - "SAVAGE JOURNEY," 1983
A made for TV movie about the suffering of the Mormons during the early days of the Church and exodus West. A low budget movie, with little accuracy to Mormon History. The Porter Rockwell character is never actually introduced or mentioned by name during the entire one minute of screen time given towards the end, but is listed in the closing credits of the film.
RANDY GLEAVE - "ROCKWELL: A LEGEND OF THE WILD WEST," 1994
“Dewey, who wrote the book, wanted me to do the part really early before filming began. He would take me out to lunch every day, and tell me story after story of Porter Rockwell. After a while I felt like I could figure out who Porter was and how to pull off such a intense figure." - Randy Gleave as Porter Rockwell
Written and directed by Porter Rockwell biographer Richard Lloyd Dewey, an extremely low budget movie based on more legend than facts, with true characters from Mormon History mixed in. Karl Malone plays sidekick.
JAMES COBURN - "THE AVENGING ANGEL," 1995
“Killing is an excellent way of dealing with a hostility problem” - James Coburn as Porter Rockwell
A terrible movie, aside from the iconic casting of Charlton Heston as Brigham Young, and James Coburn as Porter Rockwell. About the only pieces of factual history in this entire film is that there once were two men named Brigham Young and Porter Rockwell. A rather embellished take on the Utah Danites and a conspiracy of members of the Twelve Apostles to assassinate Brigham Young.
GYLL HUFF - "PLAN 10 FROM OUTER SPACE," 1995
From the creative and somewhat insane mind of Trent Harris. It's hard to believe that he could make a file one hundred times weirder than "Ruben & Ed," but here it is. Taking B-Movies to legitimate B-, "Plan 10 From Outer Space," A woman accidentally discovers the Plaque of Kolob which leads her to discover an insidious alien plot for world domination documented by a disreputable early Mormon prophet. Gyll Huff as Porter Rockwell in the crazy no-budget film. His only speaking part: "I'm gonna shoot ya, and I'm gonna stab ya, and then I'll shoot ya and stab ya!"
DOCUMENTARY - "THE LIFE & TIMES OF PORTER ROCKWELL" 1996
Documentary on the life of Porter Rockwell by biographers, descendants and others. Narrated by Lloyd Newell of The Spoken Word broadcast.
RICHARD PURDY - "STORIES FROM THE LIFE OF PORTER ROCKWELL," 2010
A documentary compiled of LDS and contemporary historians on the life of Porter Rockwell. A subsequent short comedy was also produced and is featured here.
RICHARD CLARKE LARSEN - "A MORMON PRESIDENT," 2011
An anti-Mormon "documentary" released just in time for the US Presidential run of Latter-day Saint Mitt Romney. As Cleon W Skousen reiterates, “We have learned from experience that periods of apostasy do not usually produce good historians.”
FENTON QUINN - "REDEMPTION: FOR ROBBING THE DEAD," 2011
Henry Heath, a grieving lawman whose daughter has recently died, is assigned custody of the ghoulish Jean Baptiste, a notorious robber of 300 graves. Against the perilous Utah desert terrain Heath must somehow keep a marked man alive.
JASEN WADE - "STORYTELLERS," 2017
One cold night Porter Rockwell, Mark Twain, and J. Golden Kimball find themselves sharing a campfire.
MACE SORENSON - "IN EMMA'S FOOTSTEPS," 2018
After the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, Jr., his wife Emma Hale Smith was left with much to shoulder: salvaging Joseph's estate, the safety of her family, her own grief, and growing isolation as danger and rumors swirled around her. Through the eyes of one of her sons and Lucy Mack Smith, Emma's struggles reveal a courageous woman who stood as a pillar of strength for her loved ones.
JAMES GAISFORD - "THE TRIAL OF PORTER ROCKWELL," 2019
“As always, I think the goal of everyone on the project was to deliver an honest and truthful story. Mostly my preparation was identifying the relationships in his life. At the crux his love For Joseph smith. And using things in my own life to make that real. I also read quite a bit on him. And did a lot of physical work- if you watch carefully you can see that I added a limp. ... My favorite piece of dialogue is an adlib I added at the end of one of the takes: ‘I love Joseph ... I would do anything for him.’ I really admire his conviction to his friends and faith and love that he’s imperfect. More than other church figures I feel his mistakes are acknowledged and I feel that makes him so real.” - James Gaisford as Porter Rockwell
When former Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs is shot by an unknown assailant, rumors quickly spread that the Mormons are responsible for the attempted assassination of the controversial politician. Never a friend of the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Boggs had four years earlier issued the infamous extermination order that pronounced, "Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State."
CORBIN ALLRED - "OUT OF LIBERTY," 2019
“It was a privilege to play Joseph’s friend and to pretend for a few days that I really was. . . . With him being bigger than life I thought it would be neat to contrast that with him being a little bit quiet. Sounding like he might just want to read you a bed time story, but you don’t know if you’ll wake up from being asleep.” - Corbin Allred
The film tells the story of Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum , and four other men being held in Liberty Jail while they await trial for treason. Corbin plays a Porter Rockwell never before seen on screen before. Director Garrett Batty says this may be the first installment of Porter's biopic in the MCU (Mormon Cinematic Universe).
MANNING HAZEN - "YOUNG JOSEPH: 1820," 2020
Like the Smith’s, the Rockwell’s were just humble farmers. The Smith’s farmstead was about 1 mile north and the two families became very close. And although Joseph Smith was in his early teens little Porter followed him everywhere, even though Joseph was six years older than him.
DAVID OSMOND - "HIS NAME IS GREENFLAKE," 2021
This independent western short film is a proof of concept made by passionate artists and filmmakers. We hope to tell the whole story of Porter Rockwell in a coming full-length feature film. We love Porter and his history, and this short film is a tribute to his faith, passion, and determination to do what is right - no matter how hard.
ZACHARY RAY SHERMAN - "UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN," 2022
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued this statement on Under the Banner of Heaven: “Krakauer also accepts the view that Orrin Porter Rockwell tried to assassinate former Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs after Joseph Smith purportedly prophesied Boggs would die. Then he writes that “Rockwell had no difficulty eluding arrest. Neither he, nor any other Saint, was ever brought to justice for the deed.” Harold Schindler, however, in his critically acclaimed biography of Rockwell, concludes that whether Rockwell shot Boggs “is a matter for conjecture. . . . If Rockwell did fire the fateful shot, it would appear the decision was of his own making.” Rockwell was arrested on "flimsy testimony," imprisoned for months and finally brought before a judge, who informed him that the "grand jury had refused to bring an indictment against him" for the original charge but had decided to indict him for trying to escape. (https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/church-response-to-jon-krakauers-under-the-banner-of-heaven)
JASEN WADE - "PORTER ROCKWELL: GUNMAN AND SAINT," 2023
This independent western short film is a proof of concept made by passionate artists and filmmakers. We hope to tell the whole story of Porter Rockwell in a coming full-length feature film. We love Porter and his history, and this short film is a tribute to his faith, passion, and determination to do what is right - no matter how hard.
JOSH KOSKAN - "TOMB OF JOSEPH," 2023
At the time of the construction of the original Nauvoo Temple, the prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commissioned the construction of a tomb for his family. Over time the location and the history surrounding the tomb were largely lost. Now, through the documentary and museum, you can explore this piece of history.
NOT YET CAST - "PORTER ROCKWELL AND THE MARK OF CAIN"
Porter Rockwell and the Mark of Cain is based on an 1884 dime novel of the same name. This book was the first in a series of Beadle’s Dime Novels about “The Destroying Angel of Mormondom” and his exploits through the deep West as a divinely empowered bodyguard and Deputy US Marshal. These fictional depictions of the fabled Mormon gunfighter bore only a passing resemblance to historical fact.
Most often, these sensational pulps pit Rockwell against villains as supernatural as he was purported to be. A prime example of this is Porter Rockwell and the Mark of Cain, in which Rockwell, while on a manhunt for a hapless banker who robbed his own bank, discovers a small outpost infested by a nest vampires, presided over by none other than Adam’s eldest son and the first murderer, Cain himself.
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