Way back in 2007 when the Russel Crowe and Christian Bale remake of the classic western 3:10 to Yuma came out I decided I would watch the original film first, so I put it on my Netflix DVD queue behind a handful of other classic westerns (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More, and Rooster Cogburn). I didn't know it then but Netflix would stop mailing DVDs out before I got that far into my queue and it took several more years after that for me to hunt down the other films and watch them.
It wasn't a serious mission or anything, more of a side quest, but now it's 2025 and I finally watched the original 3:10 to Yuma. I give it 3/5 stars, and I can't wait to watch the remake tomorrow while it is still fresh in my head. I'm going to jot down my thoughts on the movie here, obvious spoilers for both movies ahead, presumably.
The original film is black and white which was surprising because I didn't realize it was older than the Clint Eastwood movies I'd been watching. The movie opens with a stage coach robbery, classic, and we're quickly down to business introducing Ben Wade, the charming antagonist and his extremely loyal gang. The victim of the robbery is stage coach owner who sees his gold shipment stolen, and his driver murdered. Witness to all of this Dan, a down on his luck rancher and his two precocious sons.
From there the gang heads to town and reports their crime to the local sheriff who quickly rounds up a posse and heads out of town. The rancher heads home and wonders if he should have done more to stop the crime, he feels like he's failing his family and he needs money but doesn't want to ask for a loan. Ben Wade heads off to a hotel to drink and relax for a bit. Things quickly come to a head when the posse realizes they've been tricked, so they head to the hotel and get the drop on Wade, alone, and hatch a plan to get him to Yuma before his gang can get him back, murdering everyone in the process. Dan is reluctant to help and only comes along because he could really use $200.
It's a nice setup that leads to some tense scenes between the two men as the clock ticks down and and the tension reaches a final breaking point. I didn't know how it was going to end all the way up until the final minute. I won't ruin the movie here, but I will say I'm excited to see how Crowe and Bale, two actors I'm much more familiar with handle these roles.