Ill-Informed Gadfly

Safe? Who knows what’s safe? I know a man dropped dead from looking at his wife. My own grandmother fought the Indians for 60 years, then choked to death on lemon pie.

I don’t know who deserves the credit for this fantastic bit of dialogue. I want to believe it’s Elmore Leonard, the venerable crime writer who as a young pup wrote the short story on which the original “3:10 to Yuma” was based. Or it could have been a moment of inspiration from screenwriter Halsted Welles, a little-known scribe who spent most of his career working in television. The character who speaks it doesn’t even get a name — he’s the Bisbee Marshal. Ford Rainey plays the part. Nevertheless, it’s a brilliant expression of the capricious chaos we all live in — and the heightened awareness of one’s mortality that accompanied life on the American frontier. I wish the movie did more to back up this idea, but it’s hamstrung by Production Code morality. James Mangold was right to remake it — the 2007 version is better. Glenn Ford and Van Heflin bring stolid professionalism to the roles of outlaw Ben Wade and rancher Dan Evans, but they never approach the psychological depths plumbed by Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. The newer screenplay does a much better job establishing Evans’ desperation. In the original, he seems driven to escort Wade to a prison train out of little more than a highly sensitive moral radar.

Give this “3:10 to Yuma” credit, though — it’s not afraid to depict lethal gun violence. It’s also visually stunning. Director Delmer Daves and cinematographer Charles Lawton Jr. work in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, which was just beginning to come into use at the time, and their high-contrast black-and-white images create a menacing atmosphere. The look of “3:10 to Yuma” is beautiful but hard-edged, and Daves crafts swift and confident action sequences. He shows the meanness of the landscape; too bad the screenplay only backs it up with that one great line.