Dustin Harding played a younger Joseph Smith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' video production, "The Restoration."
Like the "holy grail" or the "fountain of youth," the "gold plates" that Joseph Smith claimed to possess and translate did not exist in the realm that we call reality. Smith may have fabricated something that RESEMBLED a stack of plates, but they could not pass a visual inspection and were never seen uncovered. Furthermore, Smith perpetuated the fraud by telling his gullible followers that they would be struck dead if they looked at the plates. None of this is presented in the movie because the Mormon Church does not care to present facts or history.