"Sons & Daughters of Thunder" features Q-C actors Tom Walljasper, left, Mike Schulz (as Asa Mahan) and Tristan Tapscott.
FILM REVIEW
By Jonathan Turner
Entertainment Editor, Dispatch/Argus
As a 1986 graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, I've admired the fact that the private, liberal-arts school (founded in 1833) was one of the first to admit women and African-Americans. But I never knew its first president — Asa Mahan, a Congregational minister — was among the little-known “Lane rebels,” who left Cincinnati's Lane Theological Seminary after the school sought to crush their call for slavery's abolition.
This fascinating, inspiring slice of influential U.S. history is told with characteristic grace, intelligence and emotional power by Moline-based Fourth Wall Films in its first narrative docudrama, “Sons & Daughters of Thunder.” The stirring 85-minute film premiered last weekend at the Putnam Giant Screen Theater, attended by 432 people in two screenings, each followed by a talk with filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle, and key cast members.
Seeing the beautiful finished product, and hearing from those involved, it clearly was a labor of love. It's been about a 10-year process, since the Rundles first heard about the 1970s play of the same name by Earlene Hawley and Curtis Heeter. It chronicles the beginning of the end of slavery in America with the first public debates on slavery, in 1834 — 29 years before President Lincoln issued his landmark Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves.
Read the rest of Jonathan Turner's film review HERE!
~ ~ ~
Sons & Daughters of Thunder is based on the critically-acclaimed play by Earlene Hawley and Curtis Heeter.
It tells the true story of the 1834 Cincinnati, Ohio Lane Theological Seminary anti-slavery debates. The controversial meetings, led by abolitionist and firebrand Theodore Weld (played by acclaimed stage actor Thomas Alan Taylor), were the first to publicly discuss the end of slavery in America. The meetings angered Cincinnati residents and Lane Seminary officials, who promptly slapped a gag order on the entire student body. This action was followed by a freedom of speech protest and mass exodus of Lane students to Oberlin College. A young Harriet Beecher’s (played by acclaimed stage actress Jess Denney) exposure to the debates and Weld's continuing work to free the slaves sparked a flame that led her to write her magnum opus Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Sons & Daughters of Thunder is co-produced by Kent Hawley, and by Fourth Wall Films, owned by Emmy® nominated filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle, a film and video production company specializing in historical documentaries for public television broadcast and DVD home video.
The fiscal sponsors for the film project are The Shell Rock Historical Society, and The Moline Foundation. If you are interested in contributing to the film project and receiving screen credit, please click here: SUPPORT THUNDER!
Comments