Sons & Daughters of Thunder

Film Reviewer McNaulty Shares His Insight on "Sons & Daughters of Thunder"

Sons & Daughters of Thunder is finding another audience in churches with screening events popping up in a variety of locations in the Midwest, including St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa on Tuesday, November 9th at 7pm.

This summer Sons & Daughters of Thunder received The Power of Voice Award at the Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio where film reviewer Ed McNaulty first saw the film. For over 30 years he has been publishing film reviews, study guides and books that explore the inspiring connections between faith and popular culture. We share a portion of his film review of Thunder below, and encourage you to click through to read it in its entirety.

We are humbled and grateful for this insightful evaluation of Sons & Daughters of Thunder and applaud every single person involved in the production.

Tammy & Kelly Rundle, Fourth Wall Films

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"This is an earnest and rewarding docudrama shedding light on the origins of one of the most influential novels in American history..."  ~Ed McNulty, film reviewer for VISUAL PARABLES.

Director Kelly Rundle’s film about the students’ debates in 1834 over slavery at Cincinnati’s Lane Seminary is based on the play by Earlene Hawley and Curtiss Heeter. I knew I would like this film at its very beginning when right before the front titles abolitionist Frederick Douglas (played by Mark Winn) is shown delivering his famous July 4th speech at Rochester NY in 1852. Best known as “What to the Slave is the 4th of July,” the long oration* is a polite but scathing indictment of what today we call systemic racism. This Jeremiad bookends the film, a slightly longer portion concluding it.

Also, as an alumnus of McCormick Theological Seminary and recipient of a Lane Scholarship, I was keenly interested in the film’s setting, the newly established Lane Seminary in the river boat town. When Lane went out of existence, the Chicago-based McCormick received most of its assets. The earlier seminary never recovered from the student rebellion and ceased operations in 1932.

Read the rest of Ed McNulty's film review at Visual Parables.

Based on the play by Earlene Hawley and Curtis Heeter, the film tells the unforgettable true story of the first-in-the-nation 1834 emancipation debates led by firebrand abolitionist Theodore Weld (Thomas Alan Taylor) in Cincinnati, Ohio, and their effect on a young Harriet Beecher Stowe’s (Jessica Taylor) views of slavery.

The film was co-produced by Kelly & Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films and Kent Hawley, and Executive Producer Kimberly Kurtenbach. Award-winning cinematographer Kevin Railsback served as the Director of Photography.

Sons & Daughters of Thunder was partially funded by a grant from the Quad City Arts, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, with support from Friends of the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, and the Bix Biederbecke Inn. The Moline Foundation and the Shell Rock Community Historical Society served as the fiscal sponsors on the film project.  The film is co-produced by Kelly & Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films and Kent Hawley. Kimberly Kurtenbach is the Executive Producer of the film.

Kelly & Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films are the producers of multiple award-winning historical documentaries and the Mid-America Emmy® nominated documentaries Good Earth: Awakening the Silent City, Country School: One Room – One Nation, River to River: Iowa's Forgotten Highway 6 and Letters Home to Hero Street (co-produced with WQPT). 

To order any of Fourth Wall Films documentaries or film projects on DVD or view them via streaming, visit SHOP FOURTH WALL FILMS.

 

New 'Thunder' film brings history thrillingly to life

"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!

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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!