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Elmore Leonard’s short story, “3:10 to Yuma,” was first published in “Dime Western Magazine” in March 1953. With only 5,269 words, he crafted a classic version of the quintessential American Guy Fable: Good Guy (GG) versus Bad Guy (BG). In Leonard’s version the GG is “the Marshall,” a family man struggling to support his family and make the world a better, safer place to pursue life, liberty and happiness. The BG is an outlaw, unattached, affluent, and the leader of a gang that has its own ideas about life, liberty, and happiness.

Leonard begins with the lawman and the outlaw just coming into a little town called “Contention” to wait for the 3:10 train to Yuma. The lawman’s job is to get that outlaw on that train to deliver him to prison. As they wait for the train, they engage in a contest of wills; the law man actively pursuing the fulfillment of the law; the outlaw passively resisting as he waits for his gang to come and help him escape. Will the Marshall succeed? Will he be thwarted by temptation, superior force, or just plain bad luck? In the end, after running the gauntlet from the hotel to the train station, he succeeds. He knows his job; he does it well. Through his competence, bravery, and determination, he out-maneuvers, out-wits, and defeats the forces rallied against him. He earns his meager salary but more importantly, keeps his honor intact. Both he and his prisoner are true to their callings. Like the best American Guys, they are what they do and they are good at it. If they were not diametrically opposed, they would be friends. As it is, the lawman earns the outlaw’s respect. As the train pulls out of Contention, the two have actually formed a kind of brotherhood. Balance has settled between them; safety, if only temporary, has settled on the world.

In 1957, Leonard’s story inspired a film directed by Delmar Davies. Leonard is credited with the story and Halsted Welles the screenplay. In this version, the western desert becomes symbolic as the action takes place during a drought. This detail facilitated changing the lawman into a rancher played by Van Heflin while the outlaw was portrayed by Glenn Ford. Ford received critical acclaim for this performance, playing against type. The movie was nominated for Best Film by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

New plot elements: Unlike the lawman, the rancher is not merely struggling to make a living; the drought has brought him to the edge of failure. If he can come up with $200 he can buy water rights from a hard-hearted cattle baron who is trying to force him off his land. While he and his sons are out rounding up part of his herd, the outlaw and his gang are robbing a stagecoach. In the process, one of the gang kills the stagecoach driver. This is witnessed by the rancher and his boys, but he refrains from interfering and loses face with his sons. When the outlaw is captured, the rancher agrees to put him on the train to Yuma (and prison) for $200. As in the original story, he will: 1) be tempted to accept a significantly greater sum to let the outlaw go; 2) be abandoned by all who’ve promised to help, save for the town drunk (not in the original story); 3) save the life of the outlaw who is attacked by the brother of the murdered stagecoach operator; 4) face down the gang while running the gauntlet from the hotel to the train depot. In this version, the rancher and the outlaw are finally surrounded by the gang just as they are about to get on the train. The outlaw saves the rancher just as the train pulls away from the station. Has the experience brought the two men closer, as in the story? According to the outlaw, he is “only” settling the score, a life for a life, but the ambiance suggests a resolution similar to the story. Moreover, as the train moves out, the sky opens up and rain falls to alleviate the drought. The film also adds the rancher’s wife and family into the mix, showing tension arising from the drought, the loss of the ranch and the need for the rancher to earn the respect of his sons. Once safely away from Contention, all is ameliorated as the wife waves at the train heading for Yuma in the rain.

According to American Mythology, the underlying significance of the Taming of the West was the establishment of law and order to promote the settling of the land by the American family. This pivotal theme drives film after film in the golden age of Hollywood Westerns, from “High Noon” to “Shane” to “Yuma.” Throughout, two concepts of manliness compete: the mild mannered family man, the un-gunned man of peace seeking to protect and nurture, versus the outlaw with the gun, the destroyer. The resolution of this confrontation found its most famous expression in “Shane” but the 1957 adaptation of “Yuma” offers a less violent, more interesting alternative, the running of the gauntlet notwithstanding. Before it comes to that, the rancher and the outlaw become engaged in a moving scene in which temptation faces steadfastness as both men come to the edge of their beliefs. In his review of the 2007 film Roger Ebert writes, “The Western in its glory days was often a morality play, a story about humanist values penetrating the lawless anarchy of the frontier.” The 1957 version of “3:10 to Yuma” is precisely such a film and a treasure for being so.