Spaghetti, Noon, And Yuma

"I'm telling you now that these killers will make you nothing but a corpse so you'd better leave this town and never return 'till your dying day because there is not anything for you here but death and no escape from it once (insert leader of bad guy's name here) learns of what you've done to his men and how could he face the rest of them in such shame and hope to remain in charge after stealing all their money as well not to mention disgracing the woman he has sworn to protect..."

With liberties, a typical line from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. Spoken without missing a beat or taking a breath. Clint would ride in, be warned by the town drunk, or undertaker, or bar owner. Warned over, and over, and over again, until it was obvious that only he had read the script.

The Italians thought to make up for our good guy being be the strong, silent type, so they added line after line of filler dialog, and this made dubbing it back into English a chore for both writers and voice actors.

It was different and it worked. Difference usually attracts an audience. High Noon was different, too. Shopkeepers and drifters and deputies galore stepped aside to let Gary Cooper's character handle the heavy lifting, but what ruined it for me was the whingy, whiny, weepy Grace Kelly. I never thought Cooper to be much of an actor and every time I take a look at Noon the old feelings are reinforced. He was a Hollywood Star, nuff said and case closed.

3:10 To Yuma, the original, saw Van Heflin and Glen Ford toe to toe, and I was far too young to appreciate the great acting and directing after catching a matinée back in '57. Not enough gun play. Couple of pretty lady's that almost made up for the dearth of lead slinging six-guns, almost, but not quite. 3:30 would be on the Sunday Million Dollar Movie now and again, but it had to have been 8 or 9 years until I saw it for the second time, and couldn't believe it was the same movie. Ford was amazing, Van Heflin nearly as good, and by then the lack of gratuitous firearmery didn't bother me nearly as much.

Glen Ford did the nearly impossible back then by making a bad guy likable. A killer to be sure, but he could have approached the role by fashioning the character to be businesslike and nothing more, sort of like they way they'd do it today. Robbing folks WAS his business, but the characters multi-layered personality featured intelligence and sense of humor that came across loud and clear. At the end of the day, his honor, you see, was in fact more important than his freedom.

Encore Westerns is featuring 3:10 To Yuma this month, and while I have yet to see the Russell Crowe reprise I've seen enough of Crowe to know that no matter how much better the effects and cinematography might be, the acting can't hold a candle to the original.

Elmore Leonard's dialog is wonderful, but since they cheated him this time around and have yet to pay what was promised back in '56 when they purchased the rights to the screenplay, I'm not holding my breath awaiting masterful speechifying. Gunnies the country over have given the new 3:10 the thumbs-up, but all a movie has to do nowadays is use the right caliber and platform and not muck things up TOO MUCH. Our expectations are that low.