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How others will see it. It's a version of High Noon. Heflin must stand alone against formidable odds. He is a man of integrity. He won't sell out. A happy ending is probable. The real suspense comes in what will happen to Glenn Ford. Will he get shot? Will he become a good guy? After all, anyone who takes the time to gently romance a bored barmaid (Felicia Farr) can't be all bad.
This well constructed, well cast, well photographed western also benefits from a rousing theme from Frankie "Mule Train" Laine. Laine is a quirky, exaggerated singer, the country vocalist counterpart of Jack Palance. But he has his charms, and it doesn't hurt his chances that he is signed to the the same company, Columbia, as the film's studio.
How I felt about it. It's difficult to find many flaws with 3:10 to Yuma. Sure, Ford shouldn't have lingered in Bisbee to seduce (service?) Emma, and the hired gunmen are predictably cowards. Town drunk Potter (Henry Jones) makes an unlikely transformation into a reliable hero. Ford's gang is remarkably monolithic, aside from its ubiquitous second banana (Richard Jaeckel).
One wonders why Ford is so eager to dispatch aid to the horseless stagecoach filled with robbery witnesses. It's also a mystery why Butterfield doesn't take the newspaper off the 'sleeping' hotel patron, since he's risking his life and money to less daring things. And it's curious how all of Ford's gang, dispersed among several sleepy towns, can be brought together so quickly and dispatched to Contention. We know they don't carry cell phones.
The most daunting task the film faces is not framing Van Heflin as the courgeous, incorruptible hero. We know that's how it will be all along. The real challenge is the character of Glenn Ford. He's a personable, pleasant, relaxed, and romantic individual who just happens to lead a murderous stagecoach robbery gang.
Reconciling the two different Fords is a familiar task for those who recall similarly fleshed-out bad guys in Bonnie and Clyde and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But these characters were reckless, and for the most part, stupid.
This contrasts with Ford, who does things out of deliberation, rather than desperation or adventure. Ford seems distanced from his own predicament. He's amused by it. The pieces of Ford's personality don't fit together, and it's the chief weakness of the film.