3:10 to Yuma

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Actually, if the were naming the actors for the roles they played according to their importance in the movie, the most interesting character for me was Charlie Prince. Besides the lure for a died-in-the-wool Schofield guy, I kept thinking about Charlie's blind allegiance to Ben Wade and what got him so totally twisted.

One could do a whole psych workup on the relationship between Wade and Prince ...

Makes me wonder if Prince is replacing a lost father figure with Wade; but Wade is almost Messianic in Prince's Eyes.

Both Crow and Bale put out superbe yeoman's performances, but as I left the theather, I found myself scratching my head about where Charlie Prince's head was at ...

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

I am reading SEVEN CLASSIC TALES, by Elmore Leonard.  It includes Three-Ten To Yuma

Is the movie anywhere close to the short story?

P.S.  First published DIME WESTERN MAGAZINE, March 1953  This volume is called THREE-TEN TO YUMA and other stories, 2004, Harper Collins, ISBN 978-0-06-112164-7

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Elmore leonard writing westerns ... all I ever read from him was about the people living on the Florida Panhandle.

Looks like I have another book to add the the list now ...

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[Coal Creek Griff]

The movies only bear a passing resemblance to the original "3:10 to Yuma" story.  There are far more differences than similarities.  I enjoyed the original story, but if it wasn't for the same names of some of the characters, I doubt that I would have realized it was the "same" story.

CC Griff

[Skeeter Lewis]

Elmore Leonard - a brilliant writer - started out writing westerns. He only moved from that genre because the bottom dropped out of the market for westerns. Among his novels are  -

The Bounty Hunters
The Law at Randado
Escape from Five Shadows
Last Stand at Saber River

I love western novels but I almost think (heresy!) that his modern-day novels are better. 'Maximum Bob' and 'Get Shorty' are genius.

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Actually, one of the first books by Elmore Leonard was 'Striptease', and was a great read .... the movie was a travesty of the book, and only seemed to be an excuse to get as much T&A on the screen as possible.

But an very interesting read was in the same book of short stories as "3:10" ... I was reading a short story in the book called "The Captives" and kept getting this Deja Vu feeling ...

What I finally realized was that a movie called "The Tall T" was taken from "The Captives" all the way down to punctuation. Costarring such unknowns as Richard Boone and Maureen O'Sullivan, I think it was one of the best sleepers I ever watched.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tall_T

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

I just ordered COMPLETE WESTERN STORIES OF ELMORE LEONARD.

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=1983641784&searchurl=an%3DElmore%2BLeonard%26bsi%3D30%26kn%3Dwesterns%26x%3D62%26y%3D10

[The Elderly Kid]

"Hombre," starring Paul Newman and Richard Boone, was also based on an Elmore Leonard story. That's why the dialogue crackles the way it does. He also wrote "Valdez is Coming," filmed with Burt Lancaster as star. Leonard's books are so dialogue-driven that they're easy to turn into scripts, unlike most novels.