3:10 To Yuma Olde Timey Movie Review

The original 3:10 to Yuma, starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin, was made fifty years before the version most of us are familiar with. The basic premise is almost exactly the same (so much so that Halsted Welles, the original screenwriter, got credit in the 2007 edition, too): struggling "sod-buster" Dan Evans needs two hundred dollars to buy water rights so his farm doesn't go under. Coincidentally, charming criminal Ben Wade has just been arrested and needs to be transported to prison on the 3:10 train to Yuma. Dan is offered two hundred dollars to get him on that train.

Is the 1957 3:10 as good as the James Mangold-directed 3:10? I don't think so, although I have a strong suspicion those who grew up with westerns in '50s would disagree with me. This isn't the 1950s, however, and 3:10 hasn't held up impassively to the passage of time (although it's not as bizarre as some westerns seem now, like Shane). The cinematography is great (and obviously inspired by John Ford) and the narrative is pretty engaging, even though there are still some cheesy parts that made me laugh. One example is the gratuitous theme song that winds its way through the film. Want a clip? Of course you do:



Take that traiiiiiin! What I really missed from this version, though, are the riveting performances from Mangold's 3:10. I am not a Van Heflin fan at all, what is up with that guy? Why does he always play farmers? And Glenn Ford was okay--he showed occasional signs of charm--but for the most part it felt like he was phoning it in. Compare that to three great performances by Russel Crowe, Christian Bale, and Ben Foster in the 2007 3:10, that are so compelling you can't take your eyes off the actors, and one definitely feels the absence.

One thing I did like about this movie more than its remake was the treatment of women. Shocking, no? The female characters in the 1957 3:10 are surprisingly fleshed-out and much more empowered than the women from 2007. While the Bisbee bartender in both films is definitely a sexual object, in the 1957 film she gets much more screen time and has more of a personality. The same thing holds true for Alice Evans. In the earlier film, she even goes chasing after her husband to help him at the end. They don't have major roles in the plot, but they do have roles, which is more than one can say for the women in the contemporary version, who are little more than pretty faces.

Is the 1957 3:10 to Yuma worth seeking out? Not really. It's not a bad movie, but it's not terribly impressive, either. If it comes on TV I wouldn't turn it off, but making an effort to rent it probably won't pay out.

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3:10 to Yuma by Elmore Leonard

Musical Notes: "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train" (more than a little literal, but it works)



Review:

This short story is what the movies 3:10 to Yuma (one in 1957 starring Glenn Ford, the other from 2007 starring Russell Crowe) were based on, although the only character the movies retained was the awesomesauce Charlie Prince.

Marshall Paul Scallen is bringing in the outlaw, Jim Kidd, to meet the 3:10 train to Yuma and a 5-year prison sentence. As they sit in a Contention hotel room, a certain understanding develops between the two men (if Jim can really be called a man--he's described as looking like a teenager). Yet despite the fact that Scallen doesn't have anything against Kidd--his words--and Kidd is offering him money to let him go, and Charlie Prince and six other men are waiting outside the hotel to gun him down, Scallen still delivers Kidd to the Yuma train.

Why? Because that's his job. And real men do their jobs, yo.

This story is written in a very straight-forward, journalistic style, similar to Earnest Hemingway. That's probably why I got a post-war feeling from it right away. Supposedly the story is set in Ye Olde West, but honestly it could just easily be set in the 1950s, especially with the characters acting like characters from a 1950s movie. I couldn't help but picture Kidd as James Dean in a leather jacket, and Scallen as a so-sober-he's-sarcastic Humphrey Bogart.

The story itself is as straight-forward as the language used to tell it. There is a sense of amorality or existential nihilism in the characters: Scallen is delivering Kidd to the train, not because he believes Kidd deserves to be punished, but basically because that's his job and he needs to be paid. When they talk, he refers to Kidd's "profession" and asks him how much he makes from it, as if Kidd's career as an outlaw is on the same status as Scallen's career as a Marshall. Kidd is almost a more sympathetic character, seeing as how his goal is motivated by more than money (self-preservation, but still) and he evinces more emotion during the course of the narrative.

Now that I've read this short story, I'm even more impressed with the 2007 film (I've yet to see the '57 version). Mangold took this ho-hum tale about Mr. Doesn't Talk Much Marshall fighting a quick gun battle in order to get a pointless job done, and turned it into an epic story of death and Manifest Destiny and really the entire Westward movement. So you can imagine that I was a bit taken aback when I read on Leonard's website that he doesn't like the 2007 film. The short story and the movie really have very little to do with each other, aside from Charlie Prince and a few lines of dialog, but honestly if I was Leonard I would write Mangold a thank you note for taking my work and turning into something freaking brilliant.

So basically, the story's okay, but nothing to hunt down, and certainly nothing compared to the film.

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