"3:10 to Yuma" (1957)

                         Before Elmore Leonard became the king of crime noir, he specialized in western stories published in dime-store magazines, primarily because westerns were a hot ticket back in the 1950's. If you read his short story "Three-Ten to Yuma", you can clearly see Leonard's terse, unvarnished style that would become a hallmark of his later work. "Three-Ten to Yuma" tells the story of a lone deputy transporting a notorious gang leader to the train station in Contention City where a prison train to Yuma will arrive at precisely 3:10.  Unfortunately, the deputy has to contend with the gang coming to get their leader back. "Three-Ten to Yuma" is sparse as a desert, more of a Western set piece than a full-blooded story. It brings to mind Hemingway if Hemingway had a sense of humor.
                     
                         Delmer Daves' movie adaptation expands upon the source material (the short story is basically the last third of the film) by making the deputy a financially desperate farmer named Dan Evans (played by Van Heflin). Evans volunteers to transport the gang leader, Ben Wade (played by Glenn Ford), to the train station for a cash reward.
                      This is my second viewing of 3:10 to Yuma and it is a much richer, more humane film than I remember from my first go-around. Sure, it has some of the stock Hollywood tropes, like a gimmicky theme song (Frankie Laine singing like Nat King Cole with a Southern twang) but it manages to be one of the more nuanced westerns of the genre. I know it's often compared to High Noon, a more exalted entry in the Western canon, but I personally think 3:10 is a better film.
                     The movie's crowning achievement is Glenn Ford's performance as the gang leader Ben Wade. He's the "villain", though calling him a villain seems a rather simplistic category for such a complicated character. He's the "villain" in the sense that he's on the opposite side of the law, but he's also a wistful man that's maybe a little tired of the life he chose. There's a tiny scene near the beginning where he interacts with the barmaid (played by Felicia Farr). Knowing he's the villain, I was expecting him to be nefarious and threatening towards her, but it's actually a surprisingly tender moment that paints Wade more humanly than typical westerns treat the antagonist.
                    His performance is also delightedly ambiguous. Ford has the steely confidence of a stone-cold killer but is also unnervingly polite. When Wade tries to bribe Dan into letting him go with promises of a better life for himself, you can sense this is the manipulative machinations of a criminal messing with Dan's head but at the same time, you can also sense that Wade actually means well and hopes Dan gets to live his life safely.
                     I also saw the film as a subtle denunciation of hyper-masculinity. The film is a cat-and-mouse game between two men trying to prove who's the most prideful and superior. Beneath the sneering threats is a story of two men trying to find a common ground and ultimately gaining a respect for each other and transcending the blurry line between law and criminality.
                     I wasn't familiar with Delmer Daves until I saw this movie (I later watched another Daves film called Jubal) and I'm surprised he wasn't given enough recognition as a director (though he was primarily known for his westerns). It is beautifully shot, with wide desert vistas, long shadows (due to it being shot in the winter), stark black-and-white cinematography, and no-nonsense shot composition.
                     Out of obligation, I decided to watch James Mangold's 2007 remake and, suffice to say, it's just not as good. It's basically a louder, blunter version of the same story with the drama-meter brought up to eleven. Not to mention Christian Bale and Russell Crowe's acting mainly consists of intense brooding and macho-posturing. It was made in the style of newer revisionist westerns (this was the same year as No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood) but the result is wildly unrealistic and phony in its cynical outlook. Everyone in the remake is way too tough and overly determined to get Wade to the train whereas in the original, there was a folksy sort of timidity to the characters, like they're not used to handling such a dangerous criminal. What also annoyed me was that the remake didn't take advantage of its vistas. You know, the setting of the film. No glorious jib shots or nothing.
                     
                       3:10 to Yuma is tough and terse, yet humane, and I highly recommend this film to any Western aficionado.