3:10 To Yuma

3:10 To Yuma
1957 - Columbia Pictures
Directed By Delmer Daves



SYNOPSIS

A small-time rancher (Van Heflin) helps to capture notorious outlaw Ben Wade (Glenn Ford.) He then takes on a dangerous mission, to escort Wade to the 3:10 train to Yuma where the outlaw will go back to prison. But Wade's gang will stop at nothing to see their leader set free.



MY THOUGHTS

A western that trades it's guns in for psychology of it's two leads.

This film can definitely be compared to the superior High Noon. Both feature a honorable hero facing an almost certain death, alone, in the name of justice. High Noon's editing and pacing made it the superior film, along with Gary Cooper's performance.

Here the highlight is the interplay between the two leads Glenn Ford and Van Heflin.
After realizing he was playing the villain, I was unsure how Glenn Ford would be able to pull it off. He always struck me as an "aww shucks" type of squeaky-clean with his cheshire cat-like grin (even when he wasn't smiling.) But he uses those traits to his advantage and plays a very intriguing character.
Heflin's Dan Evans is in a bad way. He's got little income thanks to a big drought, and a wife and two kids to feed... yet we don't pity him. He's doing this job just for the money but when Ford's character offers him significantly more money, he sticks with his job, knowing it's the right and moral thing to do.
Both characters know how to push each other's buttons and their chess game of words when they're confined to the hotel room is far more exciting than any gunfight in the film.

The cinematography is stunningly beautiful and we get to see a lot of the amazing countryside, even though the majority of the story concerns two men in a hotel room.

This film was remade in 2007. I despise the current trend of remaking everything because the new version never holds up to the original. But the new 3:10 To Yuma is slightly superior. It builds upon the story and makes it seem less of a High Noon knockoff. The end of the production code in the 1960's allowed the story to be shown more realistically graphic and less hokey. The remake was far from perfect, but that's for another review.

This version is a sturdy, fine example of the 1950's western, when the genre was at it's height.