Mormon Church to Introduce Remake of Film

The Mormon Church has finished a remake of its 24-year-old film that introduces the faith’s doctrine to prospective members and interested observers, officials announced.

The remake of “Man’s Search for Happiness” is being premiered next weekend via satellite transmission to Mormon centers across the United States and Canada, Peter Johnson of the Brigham Young University Media Production Department said.

The motion picture was remade because visual images in the old version “needed updating,” Johnson said.

However, he added, “not a word has been changed from the original script.” Johnson also said the original narration by the late Richard L. Evans, former member of the church’s Council of the Twelve, is retained in the new version.

The movie, first produced for showing at the 1964-65 World’s Fair in New York, has been shown to millions of people by Mormon missionaries and in church visitors’ centers, a church spokesman said.

“An interesting sidelight is that we’ve cast Robert Kroff of St. George--who was the newborn babe in the original movie--as a ‘spirit world’ character chosen to come to Earth as the newborn babe in the new movie,” Johnson said.

A videotape of the 13-minute movie will be transmitted Aug. 29 to more than 1,000 Mormon centers in North America, which will record copies on videotape for use in local church libraries.