A duel against time and against collective fear: with 3:10 to Yuma, Delmer Daves delivers one of the most intense westerns of the 1950s, where the tension of waiting intertwines with moral redemption and the landscape becomes a mirror of the protagonists’ inner lives.
Among the restless westerns of the 1950s there are two great “clock-films,” driven by the relentless ticking toward an appointment with death, the very hour inscribed in their titles: High Noon (1952) by Fred Zinnemann and 3:10 to Yuma (1957) by Delmer Daves. In two very different works – the abstraction of the first versus the concreteness of the second – two very different protagonists fight not only against outlaws but also against widespread cowardice. Up to its climax, High Noon retains a theatrical structure (allowing for fine monologues from the judge and the former sheriff), while 3:10 to Yuma weaves a sharp psychological duel into a lively plot, alternating the claustrophobia of a hotel room with striking landscapes (the bandits riding in among tall cacti!).
Dan Evans, a struggling rancher and disillusioned war veteran, agrees to escort outlaw Ben Wade to the 3:10 train to Yuma. Along the way, the tension arises not only from Wade’s gang plotting to free him, but from the clash between two opposing men: Evans’s fragile integri...
Dan (Van Heflin), a farmer ruined by drought, earns 200 dollars for guarding Wade (Glenn Ford), a bandit awaiting the prison train, while Wade’s gang heads for town. To secure his release Wade alternates bribes and threats with a kind of amiable cynicism. His character creates a stunning yet believable mix of “romantic adventurer” – see the remarkable love scene with Felicia Farr – and diabolical tempter.
“Everything will turn green,” Dan had promised his wife. Thus the final rain becomes the materialization of a classic western theme: the desert transformed into a garden.
