A western finally rides into the sunset

Bringing the western "3:10 to Yuma" to the big screen was more than a labor of love for director James Mangold ("Walk the Line") and his producer wife, Cathy Konrad -- it was a magnificent obsession. And it was their passion that kept them determined to make the film even after a studio put it in turnaround -- and logistics presented nightmares.

Mangold, 43, first saw the classic 1957 original directed by Delmer Daves when he was a 17-year-old teaching assistant to British director Alexander Mackendrick ("Sweet Smell of Success") at CalArts. The filmmaker showed the sagebrush drama, based on a 1953 Elmore Leonard story, in class. Van Heflin stars as Dan Evans, a struggling farmer and family man who agrees to take Ben Wade (Glenn Ford), a charming bad guy, to a nearby town to catch the 3:10 train to Yuma so the villain can be tried for his crimes.

"I would watch it on 16-millimeter, and we would break down the dramatic structure of the film," Mangold recalls. "This one really got under my skin, partly because it always really moved me. It also felt original in scope in that it was very claustrophobic and character-based, building up to a thrilling climax."

Years later, Mangold even named the character Sylvester Stallone played in his 1997 crime drama "Copland," Freddy Heflin, after Van Heflin.

Mangold introduced Konrad to "3:10" while they were working on "Copland." "He had mentioned to me that the two films he was really interested in making were a film about Johnny Cash -- and '3:10 to Yuma,' " she says.

Mangold's revisionist take, which opens Friday, stars Oscar winner Russell Crowe as Wade and Christian Bale as Evans. The new version beefs up the action, adds characters and expands the plot. Whereas the majority of the original takes place in the hotel room where Wade and Evans are holed up while waiting for the train, the updated "Yuma" follows the posse's arduous journey accompanying Wade to the train.

"Yuma" was originally to be made at Sony. "They had been very supportive of the development of it and we had arrived at a draft we were very excited about," Konrad says.

Konrad and Mangold had also developed "Walk the Line" at Sony, only to have the studio unable to do the film. (The project eventually found a home at Fox.)

So Sony, says Konrad, was "excited to get a second chance to have us back. We were working on the budgets and having conversations with actors."