Or basically, the themes of the movies I saw following 3:10 to Yuma 
. It's been on tv last week, so on its final day I caught it and ... it didn't really matter if I had or hadn't. This was an oscar nominated movie (for the score, which is unusual but by no means exceptional, and the sound) which despite a good finale remains fairly average. Crowe has as much fun as he can with the role, Bale has neither eaten nor layed off the cheeseburgers and with the lacking of any weight gain/loss to augment his performance, we aren't really left with one as per usual. Interesting development of Crowe's character, without him the film would be pretty poor and with him it's only just scraping above average.
Now onto something I've wanted to see ever since I first saw The Cranes Are Flying, which, incidentally, I bought last week alongside Ballad of a Soldier. Having seen it again I had a quick search around for the star of that film,Tatiana Samoilova's version of Anna Karenina and much to my amazement I found somewhere to download it. My amazement was shortlived when it turned out that not only was this 1967 russian film dubbed ... but even more offensively, dubbed *by Americans* 
. Anyway, even that horrendous insult wasn't enough to extinguish my interest, so I checked it out.
It's the best feature length version of the story I've seen by quite a distance. It gets around the length through sad, but necessary excising of plot lines (Levin proposes to Kitty immediately rather than drawing it out, his brother is a character lost in this version and Vronsky's mother reduced to a cameo) and it works well. At 145 mins, I'd personally have preferred they add Levin's brother and make the thing a three hour film as that would balance the stories better, but as it is it's very much in the balance of Anna & Vronsky and that's the only real criticism I have. The techs are first rate, the direction solid but not as flashy as most Russian and eastern european films from the period (slightly disappointingly so). Samoilova is excellent and gets better the longer the film goes, but overall I have been spoiled by the BBC's 70s tv version, which remains the yardstick I will judge all adaptations by. Film-wise though, this is the best by a considerable margin.
On to a couple of Bergmans - The Face and Port of Call. The former is a stacked Bergman-cast following a magician's troupe's (including Max Von Sydow and Ingrid Thulin) entry into a town, where they are held by local top brass (including Erland Josephson and Gunnar Björnstrand) and humiliated. They are encouraged to give a performance but the night before several intrigues unfold. It's very mysterious, sexy film, the final reel or two really hit and prior to that is more than watchable. The latter film was so ahead of its time both thematically and in content it's literally ridiculous (English speaking countries were doing "edgy, topical" movies like this 15 years later in the early 60s). Story is of a girl who's been in and out of a reformatory who gets together with a former sailor. Acting is first rate, especially Nine-Christine Jönsson (who didn't have the looks to sustain a film career, but Bergman used her in the theatre after she tailed out of films), the story now isn't as shocking as it must have been then (promiscuity, abortion, etc.), but this was a very progressive social drama which hits all the right notes.
So I've saved the best for last, namely The Wages of Fear. This is a Palme D'Or, Golden Bear and BAFTA Best Picture winner, which is essentially a tense film in the vein of Ice Cold in Alex (although this actually predates that film by 5 years). The set up is that men are stranded in a remote South American city and discover their only way out is to accept a glorified suicide mission to transport Nitroglycerine 300 miles across roads in old trucks. Any sizeable bump will set the whole truck alight. The only thing wrong with it is it's probably a little to heavy on the exposition and the "pitfalls" on the journey are quite elaborate (I don't think there's a single pot-hole shown in the whole movie). Regardless, this is expertly made, very suspenseful and tense, with an ending (not the tacked on Hollywood one, mind you) that adds a boost to the film. A classic indeed, well worth unearthing.