Rockwell: A Legend of the Wild West (1994)

There is no need to watch 'Rockwell: A Legend of the Wild West', but I would recommend watching the trailer, but don't be fooled it makes it look like a much better movie then it really is, and it doesn't even make it look like all that good of a movie. Porter Rockwell is a real historical character who is also something of a Mormon folk hero. The Massachusetts born Orrin Porter Rockwell (either 1813 or 1815- 1878) joined Joseph Smith's movement then simply called 'The Church of Jesus Christ' in it's first months of existence, he would serve as a bodyguard to both Smith and his successor Brigham Young, as well as a lawman, mountain man, pioneer, and scout. He was implicated in an 1842 attempted assassination of then former Missouri governor Lilbrun W. Boggs, most famous for his infamous "extermination order" against the Mormons in 1838. Rockwell was also a polygamist and married at lest 3 times and had at least 7 children. He famously kept his hair long in reported imitation of Sampson from the Bible and was said to be "invulnerable" because of this. There is plenty of movie material in Porter Rockwell, and he has also been played on film by John Carradine ('Brigham Young - Frontersman' 1940) and James Coburn ('The Avenging Angle' 1995).

'Rockwell: A Legend of the Wild West' is a low budget film made in Utah and written and directed by Rockwell enthusiast Richard Lloyd Dewey, it is his only film credit other then appearing as a talking head in a 1988 documentary about Rockwell. The film stars Randy Gleave as Porter, this is also his only film credit aside from appearing as a "Spaniard" in a documentary short about the Grand Canyon 10 years earlier. The most notable thing about the movie is its shoehorning into the story of then Utah Jazz player Karl Malone in his film debut. Malone plays Elijah Abel, an actual early black Mormon, in the film he is shown in a romantic relationship with a woman who appears to be white, I assumed this blatantly historically inaccurate but in researching found that Abel was married to a white woman who was 1/8th black, which apparently made it acceptable to the Saints of pioneer Utah.

The story of the movie is not super committed to historical accuracy, it's intent seems to be to convey a sense of the mythic Porter, that doesn't work great because the movie is rather boring, poorly made, and Gleave lacks charisma. Often episodic the film begins in Illinois shortly before the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and continues into the Utah period, probably some time in the 1850's. It constructs a narrative through line in the form of Chauncey Higbee (Michael Flynn, an actual actor but who is here all about chewing the scenery) a real historical Mormon apostate whose importance is inflated for story purposes.

The film is filled with odd touches of the "why?" variety. An attempt is made to make a buddy comedy team of Malone and Scott Christopher (a working Utah based actor who was on the series 'Granite Flats', a number of Mormon movies, TV guest shots, and commercials in Utah and Idaho) who both play deputes to Porter's marshal. These characters are all shown to be involved in community theater for some reason. Rockwell kills a man who utters the line "I collect ears". There is a highly out of place bathtub scene in which the model Shantal Hiatt that looks like a Cleanflix cut of 'Showtime After Dark'. There is also a running gage of under aged girls being attracted to Porter, "I swear I'm the only man this happens to" he laments. It's an odd movie, but those oddities are about the only thing that gets the viewer through the slowness and low production values. A curio if your committed, but pointless if your not. *