Les cavaliers de la mort

Mr. and Mrs. Ed Harris, like Mr. and Mrs. Paul Newman, Mr. and Mrs. Frederic March, Mr. and Mrs. Hume Cronyn, Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Colman, even Mr. and Mrs. Jack Benny work beautifully together as they help make sense out of Zane Grey's, "Riders Of the Purple Sage."

Unfortunately, that wonderful all-west title was borrowed by some sort of psychedelic band calling themselves, "New Riders of the Purple Sage."

I'll stick to the old riders, thank you just as the movie sticks closely to the original book.

The movie is up to its eyeballs in philosophy, but it is not so deep that the residents of Dolt City would be confused.

The background music is quite good, even if it does not include the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

The story will keep you interested from top to bottom. In dialogue it is more than a tad above Gene, Roy, and Tex, etc., all of whom i deeply enjoy.

"Riders Of the Purple Sage" is a thinking person's western, while in no way losing the flavor of a western film.

Go see it. That is 'sage' advice.

I watched this movie out of curiosity because I have the book and have read it; five times. My book is 4" x 7" and is 311 pages long. That seemed like a lot for a two hour (I believe it was two hours) movie. I wanted to see how good the movie was and what parts of the book the movie omitted. I liked the movie despite the fact that it very understandably omitted a lot from the book. I read through the other user comments quickly and found two that said they like the movie better than the book. I would like to encourage those of you who have seen the movie but not read the book to get the book and read it. Parts of the book tend to be grandiose, which might be why the two users said they liked the movie better. To me, the book tells a great story with meaty characters that you get to know and care very much about. Central is Jane Withersteen who is being intimidated by the top Mormon men of her community. When she finally finds out how this intimidation campaign got started and, especially, who started it, she is rather shocked.

Most of the new westerns being made these days (i.e. Unforgiven, Tombstone, etc.) are exceptional, but this may be the pick of the lot - the characters are real, the plot is believable, the photography is superb. I've never read the book, but I may now.

I was an avid Zane Grey reader as a teenager in the forties & have not re-read the book since. However,when viewing the movie, I felt the same aura of old west romance that I remembered from many years before. I have always felt that, in spite of his rather blatant racism, Zane Grey wove exciting and entertaining stories. I wish there would be additional efforts to bring more of his books to either the small or large screen, and that they would be as well made as "Riders of the Purple Sage".

For any fan of a good western and Zane Gray this movie is well worth the viewing time. I had read the book several times over the years and found this movie lived up to my expectations. The movie was as true to the book as any movie of this nature can be. The action will draw you in, I had to go back and reread the book to see if I missed something. The authenticity of the scenery as well as the beauty really helped make the movie. Lassiter starts out as a somewhat questionable hero but quickly you realize that he is one of the quiet good guys. Reminded me of some of the older western movies like "Shane" or some of the newer ones like "Tom Horn" or "The Sackets. Read the book, see the movie, and then read the book again it will be worth your time.