From the 1950s: 3:10 to Yuma

1957 Western

From Columbia Pictures

Directed by Delmer Daves

Starring

Glenn Ford

Van Heflin

Felicia Farr

Leora Dana

Richard Jaeckel

Henry Jones

Robert Emhardt

Ford Rainey

Many would consider this Delmer Daves's most impressive western movie.  It is certainly his most adult one, a psychologically complex cat and mouse game featuring outstanding performances from its two lead actors. 

Van Heflin, a mild-mannered cattle rancher with a wife (Leora Dana) and two sons, poorer than usual because of a drought, can use the $200 offered to guard an outlaw (Glenn Ford) and then get him on an afternoon train that will take him to prison.  It seems, perhaps, like a simple enough mission until the outlaw leader's gang returns to town intending to free him and the various townsfolk drop out of helping Heflin.

From a distance Heflin and his boys had watched Ford and his dozen henchman rob a stagecoach and Ford ruthlessly kill two men.  His sons, apparently eager for some action in their tedious lives, expect their father to jump into the middle of the fray and save the day.  Heflin later gets a little cranky when his wife seems to have the same feelings.  It's too bad terrible things happen and one can only stand by and watch, she says.

Ford and gang ride into town for some drinks.  The sheriff (Ford Rainey) gets wind of the stage holdup and asks Ford if he knows anything about it.  Ford and his right-hand man (Richard Jaeckel) say they observed it from a distance and the sheriff, for some reason, accepts that.  Soon the gang rides off while Ford remains behind to romance the barkeep (Felicia Farr) who seems to have the same ideas.

Always time for a little romance

Soon, Rainey learns that Ford is still in town and that he is actually the head of the gang.  Heflin also comes to town and fingers Ford.  It appears curious to me, at least, that the notion of a trial didn't occur to anyone.  Ford is put in handcuffs.  The decision is made between Rainey and Robert Emhardt, the owner of the stage lines and a passenger on it, that Ford will be taken to a neighboring town where a train will arrive at 3:10 to take him to Yuma Prison.  There will be several hours to wait which Ford and Heflin will do in a hotel room.

Once in that room (the film's longest sequence), Daves narrows the focus for that psychological gamesmanship.  He keeps his two characters nuanced.  Their motivations and trajectories are compelling enough to keep the viewer glued to the seat.  There are hugely affecting moments that creep up without warning.

Ford waits for his gang to rescue him while Heflin remains nervous.  Ford tries everything he can to break down Heflin.  He leaps at him (one of my favorite scenes), bribes him with more money, tells him he's a lousy husband and more.  Nothing works.  Heflin sweats.  Ford smirks.  Heflin's resistance to bribes causes Ford to have respect for his captor.

Dana comes to town.  How odd that the gang, stationed in numerous spots around town, doesn't grab her.  Admittedly it would have made for quite a different movie,  She visits Heflin outside the hotel room and begs him to stop guarding Ford.  He firmly tells her no.  She asks for forgiveness for how she earlier talked to him about getting involved.

Jaeckel shoots the town drunk, Henry Jones, in the back and hangs his corpse in the hotel lobby.  That causes all of Heflin's backup men to flee like cockroaches when the lights are turned on.  Even Emhardt wants to throw in the towel and encourages Heflin to do so, too.  He tells Heflin he'll give him the $200 despite letting Ford go.  But one of the most principled men in westerns says no.

Finally, it's 3:00 and the train is pulling in across town.  With the gang watching from their hiding places, Heflin moves Ford toward the train, a shotgun at his back.  Nearer to their destination, Heflin grabs a horse and uses it as cover until they are able to hide in the excessive steam coming from the train.  

At that point the gang is standing a short distance away.  Jaeckel begs Ford to drop to the ground so he can plug Heflin.  Ford instead jumps into the open car of the train with Heflin right behind him.  As Heflin shoots Jaeckel, he looks at Ford with the same disbelief most of the audience has.  Ford says to Heflin that he owes him one and then says he's broken out of the Yuma prison before and will again.  Uh-huh.

Heflin and Leora Dana

As the train moves out of town, Heflin spots Dana in a buckboard waving at him with the long-awaited rain pouring down on her.

While we're at it, this film was remade in 2007 with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.  I loved it as well.  It is far more action-oriented than its predecessor with an even dumber ending.

While I admit I prefer that all westerns be filmed in color, once in awhile it seems like a better decision to handle in black and white as is the case here.  It highlights the melancholy, the loneliness, the austere life in the weathered, rundown towns and desperation of the drought on the weary citizens.  The beautiful color Daves brought to Broken Arrow and The Last Wagon would not have worked here.  Bravo to cinematographer Charles Lawton who had worked with Daves before and would again. 

3:10 to Yuma is based on a story by the highly-respected Elmore Leonard, known predominantly for his crime fiction.  This was just his second work for the big screen.  He wrote this story in 1953, a year after the release of High Noon, a film to which it is often compared.  Frankie Laine sang the title songs for both films.

Ford, of course, playing against type may never have been this good, certainly not in his many westerns.  I cannot deny, however, that he was most compelling in two superb film noirs, Gilda (1946) and The Big Heat (1954).   He was originally offered the Heflin role but quickly declined in favor of playing the outlaw leader.  Critics were mixed on his performance... the naysayers thought he should have been meaner.

Of the nine westerns Daves made in the 1950s, Ford is the star of three of them.  He made Jubal the year before 3:10 to Yuma and Cowboy the year afterwards.

Heflin was lauded for his solid, gutsy, down-to-earth performance.  He usually played trustworthy characters, people of integrity.  In some ways it's a similar character to that which he played in Shane.  He and Ford were well-paired.

Farr is the actress who worked for Daves the most in his westerns.  You may recall she was the leading lady in The Last Wagon, and she was also in Jubal.  Her role here is very brief, limited to the saloon scenes early on.  She best exemplifies the loneliness of the citizens.

Dana, always a character actress, had one of her best and most prominent roles here.  Playing a strong pioneer wife who briefly questions her husband in the beginning, she comes through as a devoted wife.  She would work for Daves again the following year in Kings Go Forth.   Daves was always loyal to actors he liked and believed in.

Richard Jaeckel

Jaeckel (my pal) was always indispensable as a bad guy.  I loved his work.  He would be with Daves and Ford again in Cowboy and had costarred with Ford in 1955's The Violent Men.

While briefly filmed in Sedona, it had locations throughout Arizona, mainly at the famed Old Tucson movie ranch.

Popular with the public and largely so with critics, in 2012 the classic western was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. 

Here's the trailer:

Next posting:

One last wonderful Daves western