Glenn Ford

I don't watch westerns very often as they are not my favorite kind of movie but we turned to the 1957 version of 3:10 to Yuma by chance yesterday to catch the last half hour or so.  I watched the more recent version of the movie urged on by my sister who extolled its virtues and convinced me to give it a try.  I enjoyed it very much and have watched it more than once (though I can't find the DVD today when I want it again--Ryan, is it in  your collection at Cortland?).  I thought the older version did a great job of building suspense at the end even though I'd only seen that brief portion of the story.

As we are watching it, James mentions that Glenn Ford was your mother's favorite actor.  He didn't know why, but I said "Of course he was--he was HOT!"  He kind of remembers your mom watching movies downstairs and this would have been before the days of AMC or TMC so catching a favorite actor must have been a special joy. 

Apparently Glenn Ford was "the greatest actor never to get nominated for an Oscar" but he was lucky enough (crafty enough?) to appear in many great films along with other well known box office draws.  His persona was one of everyman but his personal life was rife with love affairs.  He looked pretty good here!

One of my Mom's favorites was Van Johnson, who apparently was very successfully pushed and designed to appear as a sex symbol to the bobby soxers of the time, but (as they say today) he played for the other team--something I'm pretty sure my mom never knew.  But it speaks to how screen personalities, politicians and other public figures are molded and packaged as products for consumer consumption. 

In this case, I prefer to look at Glenn Ford over Russell Crowe although I liked the conclusion to the more modern version better.  Now you're curious and are going to have to find out for yourself, aren't you?