In 1899 an aging President Lorenzo Snow is deeply troubled by the Church's crippling debt, left over from the anti-polygamy crusades of the 1880s. He feels prompted to travel to St. George, which is experiencing a tremendous drought, and while preaching in the Tabernacle there he receives a revelation to re-emphasize the law of tithing as the solution to the Church's financial troubles. Furthermore he promises rain in St. George if they will faithfully pay tithing. A reformation is begun throughout the settlements, and eventually St. George receives rain and the Church climbs out of debt.
Because of an excessive building program and other causes, in the late 1950s the Church was once again in a financial crisis. The Presiding Bishopric hence commissioned this film of the BYU Motion Picture Studio to help in a reformation similar to that in 1899; the brief was for a film on tithing, and Scott Whitaker struck upon this particular story.
Both the scope of production and publicity for the film were the greatest of any BYU film up to this point. The thirty minute commission grew into a fifty minute production--their longest yet--and hundreds of Church members were involved, including Harold B. Lee, who scouted for period locomotives. The members in St. George, including some who had been present in the actual meeting with President Snow, were particularly stalwart in creating this film, which they saw as their story. President David O. McKay, who had also known President Snow, was greatly moved, and after a St. George premiere it was distributed throughout the wards and missions and became BYU's most popular film; it effected a similar retrenchment in tithing, and the financial crisis was solved.
Scott Whitaker's script was based primarily on the writings of Lorenzo Snow's son LeRoi. In a famous article, E. Jay Bell discusses several of the differences between the historical and the filmic events, foremost among them the facts that President Snow never mentioned anything about rainfall in connection with tithing, that the drought did not actually end until years after Lorenzo Snow had died, and that President's Snow's health was not mentioned as poor by contemporary accounts.
Негізгі бет Ойын-сауық Windows of Heaven (1963)
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