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The Western is constantly described as being on the point of death. And it’s no surprise really—the genre reached its peak of popularity many decades ago, and it has never really shaken the perception of being “Dad Cinema.” If it can’t get the under-fifties interested, then it stands to reason that it would, eventually, die out.
So, why hasn’t it?
This month, we’ll be looking at five Westerns which have been remade, to try to answer that question. First up is 3:10 To Yuma—based on the 1953 short story by Elmore Leonard, adapted for the screen for the first time in 1957 by Delmer Daves, and again in 2007 by James Mangold.
Dan Evans (Van Heflin/Christian Bale) is in dire straits after months of drought have ravaged his farm. At risk of losing his livelihood, he reluctantly agrees to escort the recently captured outlaw, Ben Wade (Glenn Ford/Russell Crowe), to the 3:10 train to Yuma, which will take him straight to jail. Dan needs the $200 he’s been promised for the mission, although between Wade’s dangerous duplicity and his gang’s vicious determination to rescue him, he knows he has little chance of making it back home to the farm alive.
While both formats were still fairly common, increasingly by 1957, bigger budget Westerns were being shot in color; many of the other releases that year—Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Old Yeller, Night Passage—had palettes so comparatively bright they could have scorched a person’s eyeballs. Whereas black-and-white had been the default for decades, it was now a conscious choice, and it lent black-and-white films like 3:10 to Yuma a stark, mythic air.
Both Ford and Heflin were old hands at Westerns by the time they faced off in this one, but they had spanned nearly every other genre too. Craggily charismatic, they were true everymen, capable of playing romantic leads, chilling villains, characterful support. Whoever they were, you’d believe them.
And in the 1957 film, their believability is key. So much of the runtime is dedicated to watching the two watch each other, swapping barbs and then eventually, confidences, working out if the other man is who he first seemed to be, and if that surprising, growing sense that they can trust one another is, in itself, trustworthy. There are other characters in the movie—Ford shares a couple of lushly romantic scenes with Felcia Farr’s beautiful, disillusioned bartender—but Daves’ 3:10 to Yuma is a functional two-hander, with the themes of masculinity and heroism and the dishonesty inherent in mythmaking all wrapped up in tense exchanges between two of the most underrated actors of the 1950s.
On the publicity trail in 2007, James Mangold spoke often about how much he revered the original, pointing out how in Cop Land, his sophomore directorial effort, he named Sylvester Stallone’s character after Van Heflin. Nevertheless, in many ways, his film is a cliché example as to how a modern movie would “update” a classic—for one thing, there are three explosions in the first 15 minutes. Mangold’s version is, as you’d expect, much grislier than its predecessor; the characters more numerous simply so that Crowe’s Wade and his gang will have plenty of people to kill. That enlarged cast impacts upon the relationship between Wade and Evans. There are so many secondary characters in the remake, the two are rarely alone together until the big, resplendent finale.
Despite that, until said finale, the basic structure of the two movies is largely identical, with Mangold lifting plenty of lines, sometimes whole exchanges, from the original. Crowe clearly modeled his performance on Ford’s, with his shark smile intriguingly masking his real feelings. In the first film, beyond his desperate need for payment, Dan’s quest is motivated by the emasculating knowledge that his two young sons are disappointed in him. In the second, Mangold really drives this theme home, giving the eldest son William (Logan Lerman) a more prominent role and sending him along on the journey with his dad, so he can judge him at close quarters.
When Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma was released, many critics called it an improvement on the 1957 movie. While that’s a matter of personal taste—this writer prefers the taut intensity of the original—it’s certainly a potent example of how well Westerns stand up to the remake process.
The one substantial place the two films diverge is at the aforementioned finale—and spoilers ahead, if you haven’t seen either. In the original version, after being impressed by the unexpected bravery of his escort, Wade gets on the train of his own free will (though he alludes to his previous successful escapes from the jail). Evans gets on there with him, and the long-awaited rain finally starts pouring down as they make their way to Yuma. Somewhat improbably, all is well.
In the second film, however, just after Wade gets on the train, Evans is fatally shot by the leader of Wade’s gang (Ben Foster), bleeding out in the arms of his son. Furious, Wade guns his entire gang down, then hops back on the train as Evans’ tearful son watches. Sure, the last thing we see is Wade whistling for his horse, implying that he’s about to leap back off the train as soon as its gone round the next bend—but he’s fulfilled his obligation to his unlikely friend, and William will live the rest of his life thinking of his father as a hero.
Although one takes a minimalist approach and one a maximalist, for the most part, the two versions of 3:10 to Yuma are very similar. The finale of the 2007 version, however, more than justifies its existence. With that desperately needed rain arriving at just the right time, the 1957 movie embraced the mythmaking it was exploring. With Wade’s whistle in the remake, that myth is punctured; macho masculinity becomes a story that men tell each other about themselves, shoring up the surface while self-preservation prevails underneath. Both films are in conversation with each other—in concert, not competition.
We’ll leave the last word this week to Mangold, who had his own answer as to why the Western endures:
Because it’s so simple. What we can learn from the western, and frankly also the samurai film, which is a kind of a completely perfect mirror of the western, is the simplicity of the tales. They take place in an era without cars, phones and cell phones and computers, and texting, planes, nuclear weapons… In the absence of all those devices, in the absence of all those things, the world of survival, of love, of family commitment, of commitment to your ideals and your own sense of right and wrong, becomes so much more interesting.
Next week, we’ll investigate the relationship between samurai films and Westerns, with an exploration of Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars.
Chloe Walker is a writer based in the UK. You can read her work at Culturefly, the BFI, Podcast Review, and Paste.