Books2Movies Club discussion

The first appearance of this Elmore Leonard's short story was in a 50's pulp magazine Dime Western Magazine.



There are only two adaptations of the story, that are not totally faithful to the source, taking liberties with names and such, but the essence is I guess the same, about two men on different sides of the law, both strong and fascinating characters.

The first adaptation was only four years after the first publication of the story, in 1957, with Glenn Ford and Van Heflin in the main roles, and the second one was pretty recently, in 2007, with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in the main roles. But I found Ben Foster's character Charlie Prince interesting too.

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Thoughts about the story and movie(s), quotes, interesting trivia, all are welcome here to post :)

A great choice...I had been meaning to watch that film at some stage, so now is a good time to search out the short story.

Dispatches wrote: "A great choice...I had been meaning to watch that film at some stage, so now is a good time to search out the short story."

I was looking for the story too, after seeing of this 2007 version. Many good stories were at first published in some today obliterated magazines. Robert E. Howard and his Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane series are good examples, I think :)

Is the story available anywhere other than the original magazine or that collection of stories? I can't seem to get it at my library.

Oh it is published in a couple of anthologies, I just put the fanciest one in the bookclub ;)
Here are some:
Hardboiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories
The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard
Cowboy Stories

As a single story it is not available, unfortunately, or at least I couldn't find it. As an anthology, kindle version is more expensive than paperback. Odd. But I usually tend to look for my copies on eBay. I like them used ;)

Well, I got mine from the Book Depository for $7 NZ. The collection is called "Trail of the Apache". http://www.bookdepository.com/Trail-A....

Very cheap indeed! They ship even to my country for free. Good hint :)

Really short story, easily read in less than fifteen minutes. Now I've read it, it's obvious why it was so appealing for filmmakers – it's easy to imagine all the scenes from the story in the movie. Those two guys, Paul Scallen and Jim Kidd, do not have nothing against each other, but due to the nature of their er...jobs, were destined to one day confront each other. Both are smart, quick-witted and vigilant men, respectful to each other, but on the edge because of their tasks at hand. First had to bring the other safely to Yuma, while that other person simply had to try to free himself as easily as possible. It's important to note that the prisoner wasn't guilty of any gruesome crime but the robbery, which would make him unlikable from the start, nor we see anything unlikable in him at all, in a way he behaved toward his guardian. He actually does not complain against his sentence. He simply wish to avoid it if possible :) It would be quite different to read about a villain that is entirely bad and the duel wouldn't be so interesting nor tempting. Charlie Prince is the catalyst that upped the story to a lot more exciting level. Another interesting character, great to interpret - the way Leonard introduced him was awesome:

(view spoiler)[ He studied the man standing under the wooden awning across the street, leaning idly against a support post with his thumbs hooked in his belt and his flat-crowned hat on the back of his head. There was something familiar about him. And each time Scallen had gone to the window – a few times during the past hour – the man had been there.
...
The man at the post watched him go and tilted his hat against the sun glare. And then it registered. With the hat low on his forehead Scallen saw him again as he had that morning. The man lying in the armchair...as if asleep.
...
He didn't know why they [his wife and children] had come to him all of a sudden. And after he had put them out of his mind, since there was no room now, there was an upset feeling inside as if he had swallowed something that would not go down all the way. It made his heart beat a little faster.
Jim Kidd was smiling up at him.
"Anybody I know?"
"I didn't think it showed."
"Like the sun going down." (hide spoiler)]

As the story is pretty short and devoid of any unimportant details, the filmmakers had a lot of space to spice things up with supporting roles and subplots, they just had to keep the essence of the story same. How did that work? Well, I'll see tonight :)

As said, last night I've seen both 3:10 to Yuma adaptations. The first one is a monochrome classic, with two actors very prominent at the time, and undoubtedly convincing ones as Ben Wade and Dan Evans. The character profiling in the movie was superb, both actors did great job, although Dan Evans (Van Heflin) was a little bit weaker than I would expect from the story. Also, I am quite oblivious of the logical reason (except of the melodramatic one) why would Dan Evans's wife come to Contention in search for him. She knew why he was there in the first place, and she was aware (was she?) she would be pretty useless there, except as a potential blackmail target. Ah. Those classics...

I admit I liked much more the remake, despite of a bit flawed ending. Same as the original, it is based on the short story that leaves much space for improvisations and subplots, which this movie mostly takes from that 1957 version, adding a modern, much more realistic flavour and more developed background story to it. I liked historical details added to this version, non-existent in the first version, like Pinkertons and Chinese working on the railroad.
I liked much more Christian Bale's version of Dan Evans - he was smarter, firmer and more confident than Van Heflin's Evans. I liked his background story more too, just like Russell Crowe's Ben Wade was more interesting and appealing than Glenn Ford's.
I feel a bit foolish regarding my remarks from the story, in a way like naive Evans's boy:
(view spoiler)[ William: Call them off.
Wade: Why should I?
William: Because you're not all bad.
Wade: Yes, I am.
...
William: I don't believe you.
Wade: Kid, I wouldn't last 5 minutes leading an outfit like that if I wasn't as rotten as hell. (hide spoiler)]
Of course. There's no such thing as a likable ruthless killer. Although he had some principles. Which objectively do not mean anything in the court nor in the life, because it is not on us to judge... As Dan Evans said -- wishing him dead and killing him are two different things...
Supporting roles were also good, especially Alan Tudyk's Doc (It's nice to have a conversation with a patient for a change.) and Ben Foster's evilish Charlie Prince. His performance was brilliant, practically stole all the scenes he was in :)

Finally just finished with the short story which I rather enjoyed and almost immediately watched the 2007 film version. I agree that the stand out was actually Ben Foster's Charlie Prince. Its always the bad ones that interest me the most. He looked great with that cream leather jacket and orange pants...Russell Crowe was also excellant as Ben Wade but from the short story I had envisioned a much younger actor, say 20ish. I think I liked certain parts of this film - mainly the dialogue between Ben and Dan but some of the action sequences let me down and the ending seemed overwrought not to mention improbable.

Dispatches wrote: "...but from the short story I had envisioned a much younger actor, say 20ish..."

True, when I read the story, I thought how odd that the filmmakers decided to make these characters (much) older. If the actor is good, Ben Wade could have been good enough for one 20-ish year old. Maybe because of appeal, it would be hard to define the targeted audience.

Off topic now, I've seen almost all Ben Foster's movies - I really like the way he pulls his bad guys as well as good ones. For an example, Hostage was for me an average movie, but it's worth to see just for Foster's performance. He was also impressive in Bang Bang You're Dead, disturbing but really good movie that deals with the bullying and troubled teens without undermining the intelligence of the viewers.