The following is a review written by Davey Morrison of Mormons and Masons, one of the entries in this year’s LDS Film Festival. It was originally posted here.

Mormons and Masons was the first film I saw at the LDS Film Festival, in a special screening Thursday afternoon. It’s one of a series of book-DVD combos Covenant Communications has been putting out over the past few years (I worked on a couple earlier ones: Presidents and Prophets and Love Letters of Joseph and Emma)–an idea is pitched, a book is written, and then a documentary is put together in a few weeks (in the case of Mormons and Masons, three) from some interviews with scholars and archival material. Taken on its own terms, Mormons and Masons has a lot of very fascinating and definitely worthwhile information, even if it’s not always riveting (it’s essentially 60 minutes of five or so talking heads, with an occasional photograph or drawing), and sometimes feels like it’s probably a slightly watered-down version of the book, a bid padded out with pop Mormon feelgoodery to appease the Deseret Book crowd (including a wall-to-wall needle-drop score). Still, Covenant is to be commended for taking what have mostly been scholarly issues of Mormon studies and making them more accessible to a fairly conservative Mormon lay-audience.

By its very nature, Mormons and Masons doesn’t really get to look at many of the interesting specifics of the titular subject matter–the similarities between Mormonism and Masonry are essentially in their most sacred ceremonies, in temple work for Mormons, and, for Masons, the rituals in the Masonic Lodge, both of which are held sacred, and both of which are rarely discussed in other settings. As a result, much of the discussion here is reduced to vagaries, which is in some senses disappointing on a scholarly level, but also, of course, necessary out of respect for both Mormons and Masons. Still, there’s lots that can be talked about on the subject. The film does a lot to put into context Joseph Smith’s Masonry–he and a number of other church leaders joined the Masons in Nauvoo, after hundreds of Latter-day Saints had already joined and a Lodge had already been established; he was a Mason “at sight” (i.e., he was given the honor of Master Mason in an abbreviated amount of time). The film also talked about how Joseph Smith became a Mason in between his revelation concerning the temple endowment ceremony and the first actual endowment ceremonies that took place in Nauvoo, suggesting that Smith used his and many of the Saints’ Masonic background as a way of organizing the material that would be a part of the endowment ceremony, including similarities in “symbols and tokens” and in ritual clothing. Mormons and Masonsalso points out that Masonry was hardly considered strange in the 19th century–many public figures, including almost all the presidents through the early 20th century–became Masons.

Bottom Line: If you’re looking for an interesting Film-with-an-upper-case-F, look elsewhere, but if, like me, you’re interested in the issue of Mormonism and Masonry and haven’t done a whole lot more than spend a couple hours on the internet looking into it, this is more than worth your time.

You can buy the Mormons and Masons DVD, Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons, the book by Matthew B. Brown that was the basis for the film, or a movie-book combo at Covenant Communications’ website.