Riders of the Purple Sage
Tags: revenge

Plot synopsis:
The events depicted in Riders of the Purple Sage occur in mid-spring and late summer 1871. Early in Riders of the Purple Sage, Jane Withersteen's main conflict is her right to befriend a Gentile. (The word Gentile means "non-Mormon" and is used a lot in the book). Jane Withersteen’s father wished Jane to marry Elder Tull, but Jane refused saying she did not love him, causing controversy and leading to persecution by the local Mormons.
Jane’s friend, (cowboy) Bern Venters is "arrested" by Tull and his men, but is not clear under what authority. Jane defends Venters, declaring him her best rider. Her churchmen refuse to value the opinion of a woman:
"Tull lifted a shaking finger toward her. 'That'll do from you. Understand, you'll not be allowed to hold this boy [Venters] to a friendship that's offensive to your bishop. Jane Withersteen, your father left you wealth and power. It has turned your head. You haven't yet come to see the place of Mormon women ...'"
It is here we first hear of Lassiter. Ironically, at the moment when Venters mentions Lassiter’s name, the actual Lassiter is seen approaching in the distance by Tull’s men.
Upon his arrival, Lassiter expresses his trust in the word of women, at which Tull rebukes him, telling him not to meddle in Mormon affairs. Tull’s men begin to take Venters away, and Venters realizes who he is and screams "Lassiter!" Tull understands that this is the infamous Lassiter and flees.
Lassiter inquires as to the location of Millie Erne's grave, to which a transfixed Jane agrees to take him. Venters later tells Jane he must leave her. When she protests, Venters delivers this statement: " ... Tull is implacable. You ought to see from his intention today that ... but you can't see. Your blindness ... your damned religion! Jane, forgive me ... I'm sore within and something rankles. Well, I fear that invisible hand [of Mormon power in the region] will turn its hidden work to your ruin.", showing that Venters could see far into the future, and although Jane rebukes his statement, he is indeed correct.
Jane’s red herd is rustled shortly afterward and Venters tracks it and returns it to Jane. Bern finds the herd, but, in his travels, wages a gun battle with two of Oldring’s rustlers, killing one and managing to wound Oldring’s notorious Masked Rider. Upon further examination, he removes the mask and shirt of the wounded rider and learns that the Masked Rider is a young woman named Bess whom he believes had been abused by Oldring. Venters experiences a large amount of guilt about shooting a girl and decides that it is his duty to save her.
Venters discovers Surprise Valley and Balancing Rock, where he takes Bess, the girl he has found. Bess gradually gains health and begins to fall in love with Venters who begins to fall in love with Bess. Each explain their individual stories ambiguously, but through Venters' dedicated care for Bess, the pair forms a mutual love that leads to their resolve to marry. Bess also discovered the truth concerning Oldring’s rustlers, who rustled cattle only to disguise their true lifestyle of surviving off gold in the streams and business deals with the Mormons.
Venters then determines that there is a need for supplies warranting a trip back to Cottonwoods. On his way, Venters sees Jane Withersteen’s prize horses being stolen. He kills the thieves and retrieves the horses for Jane, but unfortunately loses his horse, Wrangle.
Jane’s horses are returned to her, and are locked in the entry hall to Withersteen's house. Venters officially breaks his friendship with Jane at this time. He goes into the village and proclaimed that he was breaking his friendship and leaving. After he leaves, Jane’s other herd gets stolen.
Jane at first pretends to love Lassiter — knowing he came to Utah to avenge his sister Milly Erne — to prevent him from murdering Mormon elders she knew were guilty. The two characters grow to love each other. Then Jane's adopted daughter Fay is kidnapped and Lassiter kills Bishop Dyer while risking his own life.
The four main characters — Venters, Bess, Lassiter, and Jane — realize that they can no longer safely stay in Utah. Lassiter convinces Jane to prepare to leave with him, Lassiter determines the name of a Mormon who contributed to the ruin of Milly and Jane implicates her father in the proselytizing of Milly. In a state of shock, Jane packs.
Meanwhile, in Surprise Valley, Venters and Bess are preparing to leave as Jane and Lassiter departing, except on burros. Lassiter sets fire to Withersteen House and flees on horseback with Jane. They encounter Venters and Bess in travel. Before they part, Lassiter explains that Bess is not really Bess Oldring, but actually Elizabeth Erne, the lost daughter of Milly Erne.
Jane gives Venters her horses, Venters and Bess gallop for Venters' Illinois home, and Lassiter and Jane find refuge in Venters' valley paradise. On the way, Lassiter rescues Fay, but they are pursued to Surprise Valley. As Tull and his men begin to climb up the cliffside, Jane shouts to Lassiter to "roll the stone," which he does. The ensuing avalanche closes the outlet to Deception Pass "forever." (This is, of course, not true, as Jane, Lassiter, and Fay return in Grey's sequel, The Rainbow Trail/The Desert Crucible.)
=== Reflections ===
Unlike many Western novels, which are often straightforward and stylized morality tales, Riders of the Purple Sage is a long novel with a complex plot that develops in many threads. The story is set in the cañon country of southern Utah in 1871. Jane Withersteen, a Mormon-born spinster of 28, has inherited a valuable ranch and spring from her father, which is coveted by other Mormons in the community. When Jane refuses to marry one of the (polygamous) Mormon elders and instead befriends Venters, a young Gentile rider, the Mormons begin to persecute her openly. Meanwhile, Lassiter, a notorious gunman, arrives at the Withersteen ranch in search of the grave of his long-lost sister, and stays on as Jane's defender while Venters is on the trail of a gang of rustlers that includes a mysterious Masked Rider. Jane is intent on preventing Lassiter from doing further violence to Mormons and is eventually driven off her ranch as the persecution escalates, but she and Lassiter fall in love, Lassiter solves the mystery of his sister's death and the fate of her child, the Masked Rider is unmasked, and Venters finds his own romance. Along the way, Jane also finds time to adopt Fay Larkin, a young Gentile orphan who accompanies her and Lassiter at the end of the story
Riders of the Purple Sage was written in 1912 and is set in a remote part of Utah after the influx of Mormon settlers (1847-1857) as a backdrop for the plot (1871). The Mormons had been centered in Kirtland, Ohio in the 1830s and Zane Grey would have been aware of the Mormon sect given that he grew up in Zanesville, Ohio.
Plural marriage was only officially prohibited by the Mormons with the issuing of the First and Second Manifesto in 1890 and 1904 respectively, enacted primarily to allow the territory to attain statehood. In 1871, mainstream American society found plural marriage offensive. Even after the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act was passed in 1862, the practice continued. Therefore, Zane Grey described the distaste of the institution through Lassiter in 1912, some 22 years after the practice had officially ended.

Review: The Beauties of Nature.
This is the old story, familiar to everyone who has seen more than three westerns.
What is remarkable about this movie is the contrasts in beauty: superb scenes of nature fill the screen:  towering mountains, cattle moving slowly over the sprawling prairies, high waterfalls filling the vistas shot outdoors.
In contrast, the shots of 'civilization'  are full of ugliness: broken palings of forts, ramshackle sheds that should fall down and disappear and cluttered interior shots.
Even the heroine's home is made only half-decent by the plants that she has growing everywhere.This contrast, between the beauty of nature and the ugliness of the works of man appears throughout the movie and makes the ending -- where Tom Mix pushes over a boulder that will simultaneously make it impossible for the bad men who are pursuing him, his heroine and Anne Shirley -- a child actor at this stage, appearing under the name of "Dawn O'Day" -- and seals them forever in a valley far from the works of man -- not only understandable, but inevitable.
It's a silent movie and it works as a silent movie, where all you have are the images.
Highly recommended, both as an introduction to Tom Mix and on its own merits..
Search of a Lifetime.
THE RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE (Fox, 1925), directed by Lynn Reynolds, stars Tom Mix, popular cowboy hero of the silent screen, in the second of four filmed adaptations based on Zane Grey's classic western novel, and the best known of them all, mainly due to its interesting story, good scenery, a touch of comedy, plenty of action and fine performances provided by its leading actors, especially Tom Mix as a fearful cowboy who is quick on the trigger.Opening with the inter-titles reading: "On the far reaches of the great southwest in the late eighties, Frank Erne and his wife are making a brave fight to establish their little homestead," the story gets underway with Millye Erne (Beatrice Burnham) mother to her infant daughter, Bessie (Sissyl Johnson) and husband, Frank (Arthur Morrison) who is heavily in debt, tired of her struggling existence.
She is loved by Lew Walters (Warner Oland), a local attorney, who, after being forced to leave town, decides to take Millye with him.
When she refuses, he takes her by force, having his men (Fred Kohler, Jim Ritzson and Charles Newton) abducting her child and shooting Frank.
Before he dies, Frank tells the situation to Jim Carson (Tom Mix), a Texas Ranger and Millye's brother, leading him to carry on a new mission, dedicating his life in locating his sister and niece as well as tracking down Walters.
Walters marries Millye after learning of Frank's death.
Feeling the child to be a nuisance and wanting Millye all to herself, although she really doesn't love him, Walters, now under the assumed surname of Pyer, hires Oldring (Wilfred Lucas), leader of the Riders of the Purple Sage, to take the child away.
At a loss for her Bessie, Millye searches aimlessly in the wilderness for her, and dies in the process.
During his years of searching, Carson, now going under the name of Jim Lassiter, learns of his sister's fate through Jane Witherstein (Mabel Ballin), who had found and befriended her prior to her death.
Because Jane knows the whole story but at present refuses to tell how much she knows, Carson, accepts the job as foreman on her ranch, and bonds with Fay Larkin (Dawn O'Day, later to become teen actress Anne Shirley in the 1930s), an orphaned child Jane has adopted.
As Jim saves Jane from the clutches of Richard Tull (Charles Lamorne), a ruthless cattleman, Bern Venters (Harold Goodwin), a young cowboy, encounters a masked member of the Riders of the Purple Sage, a young girl (Marian Nixon) who might possibly be Jim's missing niece.A simple story and an above average western motion picture, RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE which runs under an hour, moves swiftly across the screen.
Aside from an earlier 1918 version with William Farnum, and its 1931 and 1941 remakes, starring George O'Brien and later George Montgomery, a sequel, THE RAINBOW TRAIL (Fox, 1925) also featuring Tom Mix, immediately followed.Fans of the "Charlie Chan" movie series from the 1930s will take pleasure in watching Warner Oland some years before playing the Oriental sleuth taking part as a nasty villain here.
Aside from assuming two identities to his sole character in RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE, take notice that Oland's appearance changes three times during the coarse of the story.
He is introduced sporting dark hair and mustache.
In the middle portion of the story, he appears a trifle older minus the mustache, and for the near conclusion, which is set some 15 years or so later, now acting as judge in a town of Cottonwood, his hair has changed to white sporting once again a mustache.
Regardless of how he appears, this is the man the Texas Ranger, as played by Mix, wants to get.Of the handful of Tom Mix westerns released during the silent era, many have survived but few have been revived.
THE RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE did become one of the few to be presented on television, notably on public television 13-week series of THE SILENT YEARS (1975), as hosted by Lillian Gish, accompanied by an excellent piano score by William Perry from the Paul Killiam Collection.
In later years, it was distributed on video cassette in 1996 by Critic's Choice video and sometime later on DVD.
Rarely shown on television these days, it can be found on one of the numerous cable stations, The Westerns Channel, showing the movie with the Perry piano score.
Fine viewing for silent western fans and a fine introduction to movie cowboy Tom Mix.
Earliest filmed version of this story that still exists.
Based on the novel by Zane Grey, the film stars Tom Mix as the gunslinger Lassiter who hunts down the men responsible for kidnapping his sister and niece years ago.
His trek takes him to a ranch owned by Jane Withersteen (Mabel Ballin) who is having her own problems with cattle rustlers.
The two plots eventually meet up, and the movie features a haunting finale, remaining true to the novel.Mix is somewhat bland as the hero, and his outfit is a bit too "ornate." However, he does have a cute, playful scene with an orphan girl played by Dawn O'Day (who later changed her name to Anne Shirley).
Warner Oland, as the main villain, is suitably hiss-worthy.
IMDb lists Gary Cooper in a bit, but I couldn't find him.
Possibly the real star of the film is the beautiful scenery.During the climax, Mix, with O'Day hanging onto him, and Ballin had to climb up a granite wall.
Although wires held them in place, Mix admitted he was not comfortable.
"I felt ill at ease because of that little shaver on my back.
I kept talking all the time we were climbing to divert attention but let me tell you I watched my step."In the novel, the kidnappers and some of the other "bad guys" are Mormons.
However, there is no mention of any religious organization in this film.
The 1918 version, with William Farnum, is presumed lost, although some stills exist, so this is the earliest surviving filmed version.
The 1931 version, with George O'Brien, is available on youtube.
There is also a 1940s version with George Montgomery..
Excellent directing, good acting spark this adaptation of the Zane Grey story.
Contrary to the general rule, The Book Is Always Better Than The Film, most of Zane Grey's stories adapted well to the screen and often much better.Gray was rather a Writer of the Purple Prose and too often his great stories were therefore hard to read.But, boy, as action-packed movies?
They moved!Director Lynn Reynolds used his camera for some beautifully framed shots, and even moved his camera to add drama to, for example, the hero's entering a scene.And hero?
Tom Mix was unquestionably one in this, with his own ability and his reputation and with the aid of Reynolds and the camera.One cutaway of Mix's character almost caressing his pistol, in the holster, subtly made a very unsubtle point.Leading lady Mabel Ballin has only 28 credits here at IMDb but she showed a real talent in expressing herself.The rest of the cast, from villain Warner Oland to the as-usual-uncredited Hank Bell, shine and make this story -- made and re-made many times -- the classic that it is.For some strange reason, VerdeValleyTV, who uploaded this at YouTube, continued the upload instead of stopping it at the end so the run time shows double the fact.
WHY this kind of nonsense is so common at YouTube is a mystery to me.
Maybe there is a better version.
But "Riders of the Purple Sage" starring Tom Mix is a definite good watch, and I highly recommend it..
Tom Mix at the Peak of His Career!.
This version of Zane Grey's "Riders of the Purple Sage" is arguably the best of several filmed versions.
It stars the legendary Tom Mix in a tale of tragedy and revenge.Frank Erne (Arthur Morrison), his wife Milly (Beatrice Burnham and their young daughter Bess are trying to carve out a life for themselves on a seedy ranch in the middle of nowhere.
Oily lawyer Lew Walters (a slim and trim Warner Oland) has designs on Millie and tries to get her to run off with him.
She refuses.
Walters and three cohorts kidnap Millie and her young daughter and mortally wound Frank.
Before he dies, Frank sends for Millie's brother Jim Carson (Mix).
Carson vows revenge on the kidnappers even if it takes a lifetime.Believing her husband dead, she is forced to marry Walters.
But Walters has little patience with young Bess.
He forces Oldring (Wilfred Lucas), the leader of a gang of rustlers known as (wait for it), The Riders of the Purple Sage, to abduct Bess.
Milly exhausts herself trying to find her daughter and dies.Fast forward twenty years and Carson has (for some unknown reason) changed his name to Lassiter and become a notorious gunfighter.
Walters meanwhile has moved to the town of Cottonwood and has been "appointed" as Judge Dyer under town boss Tull (Charles Lemoyne).
Lassiter catches up to Walters three henchmen and guns them down in a saloon fight.Still searching for Walters, Lassiter comes upon a ranch owned by Jane Withersteen (Mabel Balin) where one of her ranch hands, Venters (Harold Goodwin) is about to be bull whipped by Tull and his men.
Lassister intervenes and the two become friends.
Lassiter hires on as June's foreman.Venters comes across Oldring and his riders that include a mystery masked rider whom he shoots when the gang attacks.
The masked rider turns out to be Lassiter's long lost niece Bess (Marion Nixon) whom Venters nurses back to health on an isolated mountain top hideaway.
Lassiter learns of Judge Dyer's true identity and guns him down in a court room shoot out.Tull forms a posse and hunts Lassiter.
Lassiter, Jane and her adopted daughter Fay (Anne Shirley) decide to flee from the gang.
They meet up with Venters and Bess and Lassiter learns of her true identity.
Then as Tull and his posse close in......................................This film crams a lot of plot and action into its scant 56 minute running time.
It has beautiful scenery, plenty of action and a top notch performance by Tom Mix who at this time was at the top of his game.
Warner Oland would achieve lasting fame as Charlie Chan in the 1930s.One can see why Tom Mix was as popular as he was.
He was a great performer.
A highlight in this film, was Tom hiding from the bad guys and riding upon a piece of brush tied to his horse Tony to escape.
There was always a spectacular stunt or two in most Mix pictures.