Good thing they weren't waiting for a plane: "3:10 to Yuma" (x 2)

Otherwise, they would have been stuck in Contention for a couple of days.

Here's the story of how I came to see the two versions of this western back-to-back: After missing out on the remake with Russell Crowe when it was in theaters last year, I managed to TiVo the 1957 original a few months back. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the remake to come out of DVD. Once it was headed to my house, I could safely sit down for the original, knowing a comparison was forthcoming.

The story remains largely the same despite the 50-year gap: After a gang robs a stagecoach and kills someone, the head guy ends up captured in town. A posse sets out to take him to another town where the bad guy can be put on the train to Yuma and locked away in prison. Hard up for cash, a local rancher enlists for the job of escorting the prisoner, whose buddies hope to liberate him before that train shows up. Action! Excitement! Tumbleweeds!

To cover both versions, let's look at key roles and aspects, then render a verdict.

Our hero: Van Heflin in the original, Christian Bale in the remake. Heflin, whom I've seen in "Shane" and I'm not sure anything else, comes across as plenty noble, and does a good job showing how the bad guy gets under his skin at times. He also has a face kind of like a catcher's mitt, which makes him seem a decent guy. Bale isn't as pretty as in other movies, and is given an amputated leg, to boot. (Pa dum dum.) While he has more of a backstory here -- and no question the guy can act -- I found him a tad whiny and overly moody, maybe trying too hard.

His kid: No need to ID the actors. What you need to know is that the rancher's older son is given a lot more screen time the second time around. Unfortunately, the attempt to highlight the father-son dynamic and expand on the kid's idol worship of the bandit is too much. I also didn't like the kid playing such a key role a couple of times in saving his dad's bacon. Once, maybe. After that, you're just testing me.

The villain: Maybe the most interesting discussion here. Russell Crowe gets top billing in the newer version, and yeah, he makes a decent outlaw. I liked him way back in "The Quick and the Dead." He also gets more to do that his counterpart in the original, including plenty of hero moments. Those bothered me, but I didn't mind Crowe himself. That said, I really liked Glenn Ford as the original gang leader. First, I was surprised to see Glenn "Blackboard Jungle" Ford as a bad guy. I mean, he was Superman's foster dad! But he pulls it off with the right amount of mischief and devil-may-care attitude without laying it on too thick. In both movies, this character gets the best lines -- some of them unchanged 50 years later. Yeah ... I liked what Ford did with this, and I believed him more.

The mean sidekick: One good thing about the original is that there's some decent cold-blooded killing, often courtesy of the villain's main henchman. Richard Jaeckel in No. 1 is definitely the more subtle performance, which fits well with the overall tone. In the remake, Ben Foster is more psychotic, which is a mixed bag. The wild-eyed thing is fun for a while, and I did like him asking, "You all some kind of posse?" But he's really just a cartoon. I don't know ... maybe that's all this character needs to be.

The look: Not much contest here. The original offers some good wide shots and all, but it's black and white and -- I could be wrong -- is not generally hailed as one of the great-looking westerns. The remake may not go down in history as a visual stunner, but the West looks plenty authentic here, and good scenery in general.

The action: Similar difference to the above, but that's not all good. While the original has its deliberate moments, that makes the gunfights a little dramatic. The fate of the town drunk also was a little more chilling than I expected. There's a lot more bang-bang in the newer version, but that also gave a feel of stringing together a story in between the shoot-em-up parts. It doesn't help that the big blowout at the end is rather ridiculous.

The length: Here's the biggest problem. While the old version is a crisp 90 minutes, the new one clocks in at two hours. That 30 minutes is unnecessary, and I'm not sure if it's director James Mangold's fault -- I think he's merely OK and maybe a bit overrated -- or simply a product of Hollywood. Either way, the remake does drag at times, even with the extra firepower. And really, while Peter Fonda is fine and all, devoting so much time to a Pinkerton agent doesn't really add much to the original story.

The verdict: I'll take the first version, which zipped along just fine, with a nice balance of action and introspection. The leads were both a little more convincing and on-target than the big stars of today, and the story isn't sidetracked by a pesky kid, a Pinkerton agent or extra incidents meant to make us sympathize with the bad guy. Would have been interesting to see how a straight-up remake worked, but I'm guessing today's actors might have balked at losing screen time in favor of a quicker pace. Maybe Mangold can release a director's cut that's shorter than the theatrical version. Has that ever happened? There's a first time for everything, I guess.