The Lawton Story

I saw this movie when I was about 8 or 9 years old with my Grandmother where I grew up in New Jersey. It was called ' The Prince of Peace" when I saw it around 1949.I have two pieces of sheet music from the movie. The songs were "Right Under My Nose"& "Down in Oklahoma", both sung by a little girl in the movie. The girl was played by Ginger Prince.

I saw this movie as a 7 year old in 1949 or 1950. I remember it because the it was a play within a movie. I remember THE LAWTON STORY under the name THE PRINCE OF PEACE. For those who are unfamiliar with the story, this is the story of a minister who started a passion play back in the 1930s or 1940s and how it grew. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the whole film is showing that passion play and having the church members who performed in it appear in this production. Actually, it seems that the passion play was filmed for this movie. The story of the founder is woven around the play as an envelope. Forrest Taylor did what is to me his most memorable performance, not as a western villain or lawman, but as a minister. I remember that this movie was made or distributed or whatever by Hallmark -- please bear with me. I saw this 56 years ago. I would love to find a DVD of it. It is the one movie I have watched the VHS and DVD rental places to find.

I first heard about this movie 60 years ago when I was 14 years old. Last night I found it by channel hop on TV. The movie is 4 hours and I saw just part of it, but I'd like to add Review #2 to IMDb. This played "roadshow" just like "Mom and Dad." With Mom and Dad (reputed to be the only movie to have an actual sex scene, which it DID NOT in fact have) the film is interrupted while they hawk sexual hygiene books to the audience. With "Lawton Story" they did the same think, selling Bibles. My understanding is that each film played only one theater in the US at any given time; along with the book selling scheme.

"Lawton Story" is a beautiful film to watch. The Cinecolor looks way better than you'd expect. The first thing you notice is the acting. You might say it's amateur-like; but that's because 100% of the cast are amateurs, people living in Lawton, Oklahoma; where the film was made. In a few minutes, a person can get used to this. The good point is that the dialog is NOT Hollywood style, but entirely taken verbatim from the New Testament.

After 65 years, this is still a remarkable and unique film. Particularly in light of such dreadful and stupid 2014 flops --- Son of God, Noah, Exodus --- three Bible films which have nothing much to do with the Bible.