Today is Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas, a sacred time for many in the world.
Today sadly, is also the anniversary of the 2021 Capitol insurrection, a sacred time for a few demented yahoos living under those rotten logs kin the swamp, and which our president denies he had a hand in -- denying it so much he pardoned all the "patriots" who had been convicted.
Today is also the birthday of Tom Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix, 1880-1940), the first major western movie star, with 291 films to his credit, the vast majority of them silents.
Guess which will be the focus of this Overlooked Film post?
Mix was the second actor to play Jim Lassiter, the hero of Zane Grey's 1912 novel Riders of the Purple Sage; William Farnham played the role in 1918..
Texas Ranger Jim Carson's sister, Millie Erne (Beatrice Burnham), and her daughter, Bess (Seessel Anne Johnson as Bess as a child; Marian Nixon as the older Bess), have been kidnaped by dastardly Lew Walters (Warner Oland). Walters also killed Millie's husband. Carson quits the Rangers, adopts the name Jim Lassiter, and vows to find his siter and niece.
Lassiter spends years in his quest, finally ending up in Cottonwood, Arizona, at the ranch of Jane Withersteen (Mabel Ballin). There, he rescues Jane's rider, Bern Venders (Harold Goodwin) from being flogged for a crime he didn't commit. There's a band of rustlers who have been raiding Jane's ranch and Lassiter and Bern go after them, wounding and capturing the gang's female leader, and ...son a gun! it's young Bess, all growed up! Bess and Bern fall in love and leave the valley to get married. (Justice can be strange in Old Arizona.) Jane then tells Lassiter that his sister had died after searching for her child, who had (once again) been kidnapped. Lassiter also learns that Walters is now a local judge and is calling himself Dyer. Lassiter goes to town, plugs the Judge/Walters, and goes on the run with Jane and her adopted ward, Fay (Dawn O'Day). They end up inside Sunrise Valley, where they have blocked off the only entrance so the posse cannot touch them. The end.
Look closely and you might see a young Gary Cooper in an uncredited role.
You don't have to look that closely to see Tony the Wonder Horse as Lassiter's horse.
Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aogO0I8zvvU&t=3s
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