A grasp of eternal values is central to Westerns, as it is the true meaning of human liberty. Westerns are visually predisposed to examine these themes, blessed with archetypal conflicts and physically expressive landscapes; however, these conflicts and landscapes must be artistically shaped to create a work of stature. 3:10 to Yuma is affecting and exciting because its director, Delmer Daves, and his screenwriter, Halsted Welles, have imbued it with a deep respect for the implicit promise of its story, and with a skill for inventions at once simple and daring. Nothing could demonstrate this better than the interlude between Wade and the barmaid. The theme of an unromantic existence, elaborated in the presentation of Evans and his family, is explicitly developed in the character of the barmaid, who might otherwise be marginal in the story, and the sequence is realized with a lyricism and eroticism not often identified whit the genre.

Blake Lucas in Magill’s Survey of Cinema, Salem Press, 1981