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.

Having read the original novel after seeing the film, I was most impressed how well it adhered to the original plot line from the Zane Grey novel.

Ed Harris, an actor that I usually do not care for, was very, very impressive in this film. As Lassiter, I loved his delivery of the line to the bad Mormons: "Where I come from, a woman's word is law." Harris conveys the right portion of menace and due respect when necessary in his role.

I saw this on TV; I wish it had been on the big screen

Too bad Zane Grey never saw this version; I sure he would have been very happy with this production.

Where can I start? I've heard/seen the title "Riders of the Purple Sage" for as long as I can remember, but never read the book, nor did I ever see any of the previous versions of this Zane Gray novel. It wasn't until I became a big Ed Harris fan that I started looking for more of his films, and ended up buying "Riders." I knew it was going to be good, but wow!, I couldn't have imagined it would be teriffic -by far the best western, and one of the best films, period, I've ever seen.

There is so much to this story. . . the two love stories of course; the hypocrisy of the "righteous", and the redeeming qualities of those who on the surface may appear to be "evil" or "bad guys"; the power of love between the most unlikely couples; and the spiritual power of love and trust, just for starters.

I don't know if the script was taken directly from the book, but the dialogue was magical in many scenes. Amy Madigan and Ed Harris were magical too, partly due to their personal relationship I'm sure, but their work together in this film was unforgetable. I couldn't help but notice how they kind of look alike! Common among some married couples.

The supporting cast was excellent, and the scenery unbelievable. This is one of the films I will be watching over and over again. It should be released in the theaters! See it.