Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

Since this 1952 Western now has classic status it's something of a surprise to learn that it wasn't immediately embraced as such upon its release. Part of this was down to its unconventional structure and lack of action: most of the film concerns Marshal Will Kane's attempts to persuade someone (anyone!) in his town to help him fight a bad guy, Frank Miller.   Miller is arriving on the noon train, where he will meet up with  his gang of three ne'er-do-wells. The story is told in real time and we have to wait for most of the 85 minutes to have elapsed before the train arrives and we get a shootout. But although most of the film is wordy (at one point we even get an abbreviated debate among the townspeople in the local church as to whether to support Kane) it's not at all boring, quite the opposite.   This is down to the excellent screenplay by Carl Foreman, which raises issues that have universal resonance even now, about how to maintain a decent society and whos...