345 - 3:10 to Yuma, United States, 1957. Dir. Delmer Daves.
Watching this movie is like watching the clock tick.
And that is a good thing.
While waiting for 3:10 pm to arrive the tension builds and the sweat beads.
It is like the moments leading up to High Noon (1952).
In fact, Walter Winchell, according to the film's story writer Elmore Leonard, referred to this film as "Three Hours and Ten Minutes Past High Noon."
We are all waiting for 3:10 to arrive so that Dan Evans can get Bob Wade on the train. On the 3:10 to Yuma. To take him to the Yuma Territorial Prison before his men can come back and save him.
The film begins with a stagecoach holdup.
Mr. Butterfield is riding in his stagecoach on his own line to Bisbee. He has passengers inside and gold on top.
Unfortunately for them, Bob Wade knows about it.
Bob Wade has a reputation that stretches throughout the Arizona Territory. He is feared by many and fears no one in return. His men are organized and loyal. As a gang, they have never been defeated.
Dan Evans and his sons, Matthew and Mark, are looking for their cattle. They seem to have wandered off. They will soon find that Bob Wade's gang has rerouted the cattle over the ridge and onto the road to force the stagecoach to stop, enabling the holdup.
When the stagecoach stops, Mr. Butterfield attempts to show his courage. He threatens Bob Wade that if he hurts any of the passengers, that Butterfield will hunt him to kingdom come. Bob Wade speaks quietly. Respectfully. He does not aim to hurt anyone. He just wants what is under that tarpaulin up there. His man begins unloading.
Bob Wade speaks so quietly that he has one of his henchmen do his yelling for him. The two of them ride up to Dan and his sons, and he has his henchman shout up to them that they are to stay where they are, and they will get their cattle back in five minutes.
Matthew and Mark want their father to do something, but he just sits there. On his horse. He says there is nothing he can do. It would be seven against one. They must wait it out. So they sit there above the road and watch the holdup.
Bill Moons is the stagecoach driver. He quick-draws his gun. He takes one of Bob Wade's men hostage. He demands they drop their guns or he will shoot.
"Don't anybody move. If you move, I'll kill him."
Not if Bob Wade gets to him first.
Without a moment's hesitation, Bob Wade shoots his own man. He falls on his face from the top of the stagecoach, no longer shielding Bill Moons. In rapid succession Wade shoots Bill Moons too. None of his men seem troubled by it. They are committed to the boss. It is all a part of the job.
The gang goes into town. Bisbee. They stop at the bar. A barmaid walks up and down the bar refilling shots as the men line the entire length of it. Her name is Emmy. Bob thinks he recognizes her. He aims to find out.
He asks for the town Marshal. The Marshal is taking a nap. Everyone in this town takes a nap from 1:00 to 2:00 pm. She is not to wake him. Bob Wade tells her they just ran into a stagecoach holdup and they want the Marshal to go help the people. She does not budge until she finds out a man was killed. For that, the Marshal allows her to wake him.
When the Marshal enters, and the bartender, Wade and his men convince them they are with the Prairie Cattle Company, on their way to Mexico to drive back 60,000 head.
The Marshal raises a posse and goes in the direction of the stagecoach.
Bob Wade's men go the other direction. They get off scot-free.
Bob Wade stays behind. He wants to talk to Emmy. Haven't I seen you somewhere before? It turns out he means it. And he is right. Cheyenne? No. El Paso? No. Dodge City? That's it. She was a singer at the Blind Irishmen. Best time I ever had in my life. She started coughing and the doctor told her to breathe dry air. So she moved here.
Glenn Ford's wooing of Felicia Farr is sweetly touching. They just worked together, and fell in love, yesterday in Jubal (1956), as Jubal Troop and Naomi Hoktor. Director Delmer Daves saw their chemistry and brings them back together again. This scene builds up an endearing quality in Bob Wade. The viewer is tempted to pull for him even while wanting to keep her protected.
Later, however, Bob Wade starts wooing Dan Evans' own wife using some of the same talk, right in front of Dan in his own house! Bob Wade cannot be trusted.
Bob Wade's men take the town's posse for a bunch of hicks. But they have their own tricks up their sleeve. Once they arrive at the stagecoach and learn they have been duped, they devise a plan to take Wade at the bar and sneak him out of town before his men can catch them.
The plot is clever, and it works. The Bisbee poss outsmarts the Wade gang.
And they get Dan Evans involved.
How? Well, first, his wife Alice has been pressuring him just as his boys have to do something. And second, he desperately needs $200. The land has been under a drought for three years and his cattle are dying. He can buy a six-month water lease to use his neighbors stream if he can come up with $200. He goes into town and acts as a decoy, demanding from Bob Wade $2 for his time getting his cattle back. Wade gives him that plus $2 more for his sons' time. As they are talking the posse surround Wade and take him.
They just happen to assign Mac to guard Wade, and Mac is the man from whom Dan is seeking the loan. Dan finds himself in the awkward position of negotiating the loan in front of Bob Wade, as Mac keeps his gun trained on Wade. Mac does not have the money Dan needs, so Dan decides to go home. He will not help this posse anymore.
Until Mr. Butterfield offers him $200 to help carry out the plan. Dan just happens to be the best shot in town.
The rest of the film involves the execution of the tension-building plan, the counter-plan, and the long wait for the 3:10 to Yuma to arrive.
If only it can come before it is too late.
Much of the drama occurs with the two men sitting in a room, and one witnesses just how insidious Bob Wade is. While remaining always relaxed, always quiet.
Jubal was Wyoming. 3:10 to Yuma is Arizona. And the Arizona landscape is just as large and open and gorgeous as Wyoming's, only with different contours and textures.
Glenn Ford makes a good bad man. Word is that he was offered the Dan Evans role but turned it down for the Bob Wade role. Good choice. He knows his career. He takes care of himself. Van Heflin makes a great foil for him as the good guy Dan.
Both Elmore Leonard and Ford's son, Peter Ford, have good interviews on the disc. Among the many insights shared, Peter discusses his father's approach to acting. He was the opposite of Rod Steiger's newer Method approach in Jubal.
Ford's approach was more pragmatic.
Learn your lines. Hit your marks. And get on with life.
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