Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Interesting story and it lands well when you see it for the first time. People in a town that you just arrived in do not like you and this is in the first five minutes of arriving. Furthermore, it makes no sense especially to the guy it is being acted out on but he handles it well. It stays consistent throughout the movie until the viewer is dying to know just what is going on and why. Add some fine actors and you got yourself a movie to be watched until the very end. Tracy holds his own playing a man who has no fear but should especially since he has only one arm. Boy does that slowly creep up on you and then explode into some fine, memorable action not to be missed. The rest of the cast supports as well as plays out their roles to perfection. This movie reminds me of when someone tries to commit a crime and thinks they have it all covered only to find out what has been proved over and over again i.e. you cant' cover all the bases. Very nicely portrayed here and the movie gives us good closure too. I like eating when watching a movie. I had bowl of miscellaneous fruits with some homemade double roasted filberts and almonds. Mmm good! Add a tasty drink and do not be bothered for a couple of hours. Enjoy this

SYNOPSIS: A mysterious, one-armed stranger arrives at a lonely western whistle-stop. What's his purpose? Why is he asking questions? NOTES: Nominated for the following prestigious Hollywood awards: Best Actor, Spencer Tracy, who lost out to Ernest Borgnine's performance, not in this picture, but "Marty"; Best Director, John Sturges, who lost out to Marty's Delbert Mann; Best Screenplay, Millard Kaufman. This award was actually won, of course, by Paddy Chayefsky for "Marty".Number five in The Film Daily's annual "Best Films" poll of USA and Canadian movie critics. Number four on the the National Board of Review's list of the Best American Films of the Year. Negative cost (excluding studio overheads): $1.2 million. Domestic rental gross: In excess of $3 million.Re-made in 1960 as "Platinum High School".COMMENT: "Back in the early days of CinemaScope," John Sturges tells us, "the wide, wide wide-screen was considered desirable only for enormous spectacles using thousands of people and mile-high sets. I thought it ought to be the other way around. Here I was with one man stuck in the desert. It occurred to me that the way to show the isolation of this one man in the desert was to use all this space, to surround him with space. The more space you have around him, the more you isolate him. And the more you isolate him, the more suspenseful your story becomes." Of course, Spence wasn't the only man in the town. He was the stranger, probing, asking questions, interacting with the tight- lipped townsmen who regarded him with suspicion, distrust, and even hate. Why? Under Sturges' riveting direction, Bad Day at Black Rock comes across as an engrossingly suspenseful story, stunningly directed, atmospherically photographed and vividly enacted by a first-rate cast led by Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis and Ernest Borgnine.

One year after she appeared in this modern western, Anne Francis starred in the iconic science fiction film, "Forbidden Planet". The town that serves as the setting for this film is so isolated that it could be on some similar, distant planet. I have been to actual towns in Montana and Wyoming with even fewer than 15 residents, but there always was the presence of at least some kind of activity, business, or industry in these towns. Even if the road through one of these towns wasn't paved, there was always an occasional visitor passing through, including myself. In Black Rock, on the other hand, no one person or business seems to be there for any particular reason, other than for some sinister purpose. Aside from occasional hunting for subsistence, no one appears to do much of anything other than hanging out in the only hotel's lobby. A hotel for whom? Liz (Anne Francis), the only female resident for miles, runs a service station, but for whom? For Coley's (Ernest Borgnine's) old crate or for Smith's (Robert Ryan's) dilapidated wagon? From a purely economic perspective, in order for these establishments to exist, they need customers, and there just aren't enough of them to justify their survival as "going concerns". It is as if this town lives only in the world of science fiction because it could never subsist in reality. Or could it?The scenes of the train speeding through the remote wilderness, filmed in CinemaScope, are among the most effective segments of the movie. From the very start, by the very presence of the train and even more by its actual stopping for the first time in four years at the town's "station", the viewer immediately senses the sudden, physical encroachment of the civilized world that lies somewhere far from Black Rock.The central character, Macreedy, played very well by a prematurely aging Spencer Tracey, has business with Mr. Komoko, a Japanese-American farmer who supposedly lives outside the town in an area called Adobe Flats. Is it only a coincidence that Lone Pine, California, the film's actual locale, is near the site of Manzanar, one of the largest Japanese-American internment camps during World War II? From the minute he steps off the invasive train, Macreedy is met with intense suspicion, and the discomfort of the townspeople grows even more when he seeks information about Mr. Komoko, of all people. Do the town's mostly idle inhabitants have a problem with the farmer's ethnicity or rather with the fact that he might be the only resident for miles who actually produces anything? Maybe a combination of both.The excellent acting by a very talented cast is one of the most positive aspects of this film. For me, there was too much inactive loafing in the hotel lobby by the mostly disagreeable characters to maintain my interest, but I was surely jolted awake by Mr. Tracy's improvised Molotov cocktail, an experience that is not to be missed."This is my town, Mr. Macreedy, like it or not!" snaps Liz. What's to like here, Liz? Poor Anne Francis. She always ends up in the creepiest places, not only on distant Altair-5 and as a victim of a mean pranks by the thugs of North Manual High but now as a prisoner of this remote, rotten town, consisting of nothing but very unlikable folks. The woman never seems to catch a break.Despite the bone dry sense of total isolation and relative inactivity, see this one for its very able cast. You can't go wrong there.

This is one of the all time classics with a great plot and the certain twists and turns it takes you on wondering if Spencers character is going to get out of town alive or not and where everyone clicks just right having movie greats like Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin and of course Spencer Tracy you can't really say anything bad about this movie other than the fight scene between Ernest Borgnine and Spencer Tracy where he does his judo throw on Ernest is such a terrible job as a double standing in. Every time I see that part of the movie I want to find out how that got by the director. The guy was like more slender and like a foot taller and he didn't even look anything like Spencer Tracy. I always wonder how things like that get by unnoticed in the great Hollywood? Other than that great movie. Ben the critic