This silent melodrama is ready against the 1840s westward migration of the Mormons. Dora, a young lady, and her family are saved from an Indian attack by a Mormon community traveling to Utah. They be part of the wagon train. Dora is pursued by 2 men, one a recent convert, the opposite a scheming elder with a stable of wives. The Mormon elder needs her in his harem. When the mother kills herself from revulsion toward polygamy, the daughter should take into account her own future and also the man she loves. one amongst Mae Murray's few surviving films, this was supposed by Robert Leonard to be a thoughtful drama regarding the products and evils of Mormonism, however nowadays it's usually thought of pure anti-Mormon propaganda.
Exciting, visually impressive silent melodrama
Report from Cinesation 2006: A MORMON MAID (****) Mae Murray and fogeys are taken in when an Indian attack by a Mormon community co-led by a lustful Noah Beery, who has eyes on creating Mae the fifth or sixth Mrs. Beery. during a long career that included the likes of the nice Ziegfeld and Esther Williams, Robert Z. Leonard was never accused of an far more than personal vogue. however even he had enough ability and instinct to require full advantage of the visual opportunities provided by a military of ominously hooded spiritual zealots, lined up at the hours of darkness in gleaming white, or marching in lockstep with a defenseless young lady as their prisoner.
The Variety review quoted within the program guide inexplicably suggests that a brief running time kept this 1917 film from achieving all it may. To fashionable eyes it is the indisputable fact that it races along at such a ferocious clip that's its greatest strength, beside the effective use of visuals that build the spiritual zealots additional ominous and convincing villains than the standard rake lusting when the virginal heroine. In fact, for a modification, the massive strapping father is the maximum amount a victim attempting to safeguard his chastity because the lady is, since he is ordered, to his horror, to require a second wife-- a sequence you haven't seen before during a silent movie, and one that is played for all it's value.
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