Spine 657: 3:10 to Yuma

The second in our pair of Delmer Daves westerns is certainly the superior movie: taut, beautifully shot, and that theme song! Like last week's film 3:10 to Yuma (1957) stars Glenn Ford, this time playing a villain who seems to have a monopoly on violence 'round these parts being taken in by a farmer (Van Heflin) with a real sense of wanting things to be normal for once.

3:10 to Yuma is also our first movie in the Collection based on the work of Elmore Leonard, a prolific writer whose work has been adapted into dozens of films of a varying quality over the years (from Burt Reynolds' Stick (1985) to Paul Schrader's Touch (1997). Despite there being some truly great films on that list, we won't see anything more from Leonard in this project for about 12 years when we reach the Ranown Westerns boxset at Spine 1186.