By a Hair

In 1957, I don't think Panni took me to see this movie. She told me repeatedly that whenever Pepi took her to see Tom Mix Westerns in the thirties, she proceeded to fall asleep. Not a connoisseur of the genre, myself, I nonetheless enjoyed Clint Eastwood's spaghetti Westerns; and, more recently, his memorable The Unforgiven.
The remake of 3:10 to Yuma caught me by surprise. It was gripping. The phrase "character-driven" could have sprung merely from watching Christian Bale's and Russell Crowe's performances as, respectively, good guy rancher Dan Evans; and baddie (who's as itching to use his trigger finger as he is to achieve some level of redemption) Ben Wade. Who was better? Bale. By a hair.
Who was better in the original: the (to my mind) low-key Heflin as Evans; or the rough-and-tumble Ford as Wade? I guess I'm just going to have to take myself to see it.
Ninina needs three and a half popcorn boxes. Twice.