CALL ME SNAKE

For some reason my local library has a large collection of westerns on DVD. As this is a genre I follow, every few months I watch one. Last night I saw “3:10 to Yuma,” a rather taut 1957 film starring Glenn Ford that’s like “High Noon” with a twist. I was surprised to see a story credit by Elmore Leonard who has had an amazingly productive career–and is still turning out books 50 years later. I have read a large number of his crime novels and a few westerns like Hombre though I didn’t expect to see his name on this film. But this isn’t a bad story credit to have because it isn’t a bad story. It seems rather conventional for most of the going but takes an unexpected turn near the end. So I recommend it, if you go in for this sort of thing, and afterwards you might want to curl up with a cozy little book like “Killshot.”