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Okay, the exclamation point might be overselling it a little bit.

This thread is about curious historical or pop culture connections to Mormonism that are unexpected. Please note that mere passing references to Mormons, even if funny, are not the sort of thing this thread is about. This is about having to look for the connection. It's a little bit like Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon, except different from that.

Anecdotal examples of vague ideas are always conceptually preferable to concise definitions, as Plato conclusively proved in the Euthyphro dialogue. So to explain what I mean about tenuous connections to Mormonism, I turn to The Sword and the Sorcerer (this example is from a previous thread, but some lurkers or newcomers may have missed its glorious spectacle).

Many of us may remember the Church-produced movie Legacy that was shown at Temple Square years ago. Legacy was about a woman who came to Utah with the pioneers remembering her experiences and how her trials strengthened her faith, and also how she said a prayer that made her dead ox come back to life.



The woman who is the main character is Eliza Williams, and was played by an actress named Kathleen Beller. Prior to her appearance in Legacy, Ms. Beller had a major role in a 1982 sword and sorcery opus, which was aptly titled, The Sword and the Sorcerer. Ironically, despite its Mormon connections, this movie is not up to LDS standards, being rated R.



In The Sword and the Sorcerer, Ms. Beller plays Alana, whose brother has been captured by the evil usurper to the throne (B movie icon Richard Lynch). She tells the hero, Talon, that if he rescues her brother she will give him "one night of pleasure."



Then Alana herself is captured, and the evil ruler decides to make Alana marry him. And then we are treated to a scene of Ms. Beller being nude and getting an oil rub-down to prepare for her forced wedding.

But our heroin [sic] from Legacy is not the only connection that this cinematic commentary on the human condition has to Mormonism. There is also a sorcerer in The Sword and the Sorcerer (as well as a sword, hence the title). This eponymous sorcerer, who looks like the love child of Freddy Krueger and the Emperor from Return of the Jedi,



was played by Richard Moll. Some people might remember him as Bull from "Night Court." However, Mr. Moll ("Mr." to his friends) also played the role of one Joseph Smith, Jr. in this 1977 movie:



I am led to understand that the Grizzly Adams guy played Brigham Young. Now, this is hearsay, but according to someone who told me about watching this movie on TV during his mission, at the end of the movie, Brigham Young and Joseph Smith are shown up in the sky, looking down on modern (1977-ish) Salt Lake City. Joseph Smith says something like, "Look at all that God has accomplished with the Mormons." And Brigham Young responds to the effect that, "Yes, but He couldn't have done it without us."

I hope all of you enjoy as much as I do this knowledge of some tenuous connections between a low-budget 80's fantasy cult film and Mormonism. I further hope that from now on, whenever you think of Joseph Smith, you will think of Bull from "Night Court" and/or Xusia the undead sorcerer.

ETA: I have now determined that A Savage Journey was made in 1983, and not 1977 as previously indicated.

Further to the OP's mention of A Savage Journey:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmscy9 ... shortfilms

As if the rendition of "The Circle of Our Love" from Saturday's Warrior toward the end (circa 1:30:00) were not enough, the big payoff is at 1:32:00.

At last, the long-promised day of a cheesy 80's B movie about Mormon history has dawned (for me, because I had never seen this before).

I cannot recommend this movie highly enough.

EDIT: to reflect that this movie was released in 1983, not 1977 as I previously thought.

Original Battlestar Galactica.

Kobol. Adama. Council of the Twelve. You name it, it's got it all.

Ahh Legacy. They released it on video while I was on my mission. I used to show it to investigators who had been taught all 6 discussions, showed zero signs of committing toward anything solid, and yet still tolerated us coming over to their house unannounced. Since tracting sucked, we always used these types of people as an excuse to burn an hour or two.

Here is the rationalization I usually found myself cooking up to avoid tracting:

"We have been teaching the Jones family to no avail. All six discussions and they still haven't came to church or said yes to baptism. Brother Jones still drinks beer. Let's go show them Legacy, and after that, we will burn through our other videos until I get transferred or the Jone's finally start ignoring us."

We all had the movie memorized from viewing it 10,000 times. We became immune to the warm fuzzies it invoked. We began noticing all sorts of flaws. Behind the scenes we would all mock it. The acting was horrible, but the church did such a good job of selling it as this epic spiritual feast of Mormon cinema that you didn't notice the cheesy dialogue and flaws until you saw it about 20 times. After that, it became comedy gold to us missionaries, but we still kept a solemn and straight face when we would show it to the investigators.

I cried the first couple of times I watched Legacy at the JSM building.

I felt the Legacy movie was as near the spiritual level of the temple as you could get, without entering the temple.

Richard Moll was also in some seminary videos we watched in the late 80s early 90s. If I recall correctly he played Joseph Smith.

Mike Farrell of MASH was in an LDS film about home teaching called "Worthy to Stand."

http://ezinearticles.com/?Worthy-to-Sta ... id=6973691

Samuel W. Taylor, son of apostle John W. Taylor and grandson of church president John Taylor, wrote the book and screenplay for "The Absent-Minded Professor."

Bob Loblaw wrote:Samuel W. Taylor, son of apostle John W. Taylor and grandson of church president John Taylor, wrote the book and screenplay for "The Absent-Minded Professor."

Damn you, Bob Loblaw, I wanted to bring Samuel Wooley Taylor up! What an interesting character he was!