"Bad Day at Black Rock" opens with the startling shot of a high-speed train literally cutting through a desert landscape and tracing an immediate contrast between modernity and the old American west. Even the title has a Western resonance: "Bad Day at Black Rock", suggesting a showdown à la "Ok Corral" (whose climactic gunfight inspired another Sturges film) and enhanced by a crudely alarmist score by André Prévin, one that could work for a B-horror or cheap exploitation flick. Then the whole energy carried by the credits instantly fades out as the train stops at Black Rock station and Spencer Tracy sets his first foot, then we know we've been tricked.
Telegraphist Mr. Hastings (Russel Collins) notices that nobody ever stopped in the last four years: Macreedy's arrival is interpreted as disturbance. We get closer to the territory of "High Noon" with one man alone in a hostile town. The pace slows down but not a single line or encounter is wasted and the film's minimalism turns out be a guarantee of straightforward narrative. Macreedy is a man in his early fifties, soberly dressed with black suit and tie, one arm kept in his pocket probably hiding some disability, but as far as people around are concerned, this man-with-no-name is a man-with-bad-news. Spencer Tracy makes his aura so effortless he's beyond accolades and we can only focus on the gallery of colorful bad guys reacting to his very presence.
Local thug Hector, played by Lee Marvin and Coley, the brute played by Ernest Borgnine are wearing blue jeans and worn-out shirts. Marvin's eyes hiding beneath a stetson, he insists he's a cowboy but there's something so showy in his demeanor he doesn't even seem to mean it and Borgnine keeps his bare arms and his fists closed as if he was waiting for a signal to throw the first punch. To tone down the unfriendliness there's veteran actor Walter Brennan as the local doctor, practician and veterinary who looks like a man caught between a rock and a hard place (literally). But the most thankless role belongs to the pathetic sheriff (Dick Dagger) who's dressed like in a John Ford Western, that he's the most useless of all indicates a total irrelevance of the frontier spirit in 1945. He's basically what Will Kane would have become had he left Hadleyville.
Based on a story by Howard Breslin, the film is avant-garde in its revision of the Western myth before it became a trend. And with his black tie, Macreedy represents civilization and it's not surprising that his nemesis Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) looks more like a product of his time with his baseball cap (so red that the symbolism is obvious). The two have cordial exchanges, Reno tries to dig into an oblivious Macreedy's past and the more he does, the more it actually reveals about himself: a racist bigot jealous of some Japanese settler and who couldn't even enlist after Pearl Harbor. There's an ugly past kept secret in that town that didn't take part to the call of history, betraying the old ideals, and perverting the most noble figures. That the sherif sleeps in his own jail is revealing of that failure.
In this town that belongs to no time, even youth is compromised, the young Peter Wirth played by Eric Ericson is constantly cut off by peer pressure, and his sister (Anne Francis) had her infatuation with Reno corrupting her mind. Reno is a leader but by default: better be master in hell than servant in heaven so he boosts his troop, accusing Macreedy of brining an infection spreading all over Black Rock. But he's twice wrong, the town was already dying within itself and Macreedy never claimed to be a hero, simply a veteran coming to give his medal to a Japanese-American whose son died in combat, saving his life. Had everyone acted normally and told him that Komoko died, no suspicion would have been raised. Instead, their cagey attitude and defiance pushed Macreedy to his investigation till Komoko's place where oddly placed flowers hinted at more than a buried secret. The film has the merit to be one of the first to deal with the treatment of Japanese-Americans during the war.
And there's also the loss of masculinity, and in a poignant confrontation, Doc asks Sheriff to pull himself together and trust Macreedy who might be the antidote. The irony once again is that Macreedy didn't seek any trouble but as he told Reno, he was forced to retire from the army and was destined to a meaningless existence. His mission him Black Rock might also allow him to conquer back his pride and feel useful. And maybe that's the essence of manhood, feeling useful for a just cause. That was the sherif's who was called pathetic by Reno or taken his star without any permission, in the end, some redeem themselves, those who don't serve the just cause serve its opposite, inaction is no option and those who sin get their karmic revenge.
And this comes from a film with again, minimal action and a good deal of dialogues, many of them set in the hotel lobby that offers the perfect staging for man-to-man confrontation, and make a clever use of Cinemascope, action is provided with a car chase and a fight scene where Macreedy demonstrates his karate skills against Coley (Borgnine would take his revenge against Tracy by winning the Oscar for "Marty") and a climax that is both suspenseful, meaningful and satisfying. All in 80 minutes which is enough to cover everything and come full circle with the story that naturally ends with the train stopping for the second time to live, and a few people in Black Rock able to live up with their conscience again and an old man who didn't suspect the existential implications of his mission.
Telegraphist Mr. Hastings (Russel Collins) notices that nobody ever stopped in the last four years: Macreedy's arrival is interpreted as disturbance. We get closer to the territory of "High Noon" with one man alone in a hostile town. The pace slows down but not a single line or encounter is wasted and the film's minimalism turns out be a guarantee of straightforward narrative. Macreedy is a man in his early fifties, soberly dressed with black suit and tie, one arm kept in his pocket probably hiding some disability, but as far as people around are concerned, this man-with-no-name is a man-with-bad-news. Spencer Tracy makes his aura so effortless he's beyond accolades and we can only focus on the gallery of colorful bad guys reacting to his very presence.
Local thug Hector, played by Lee Marvin and Coley, the brute played by Ernest Borgnine are wearing blue jeans and worn-out shirts. Marvin's eyes hiding beneath a stetson, he insists he's a cowboy but there's something so showy in his demeanor he doesn't even seem to mean it and Borgnine keeps his bare arms and his fists closed as if he was waiting for a signal to throw the first punch. To tone down the unfriendliness there's veteran actor Walter Brennan as the local doctor, practician and veterinary who looks like a man caught between a rock and a hard place (literally). But the most thankless role belongs to the pathetic sheriff (Dick Dagger) who's dressed like in a John Ford Western, that he's the most useless of all indicates a total irrelevance of the frontier spirit in 1945. He's basically what Will Kane would have become had he left Hadleyville.
Based on a story by Howard Breslin, the film is avant-garde in its revision of the Western myth before it became a trend. And with his black tie, Macreedy represents civilization and it's not surprising that his nemesis Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) looks more like a product of his time with his baseball cap (so red that the symbolism is obvious). The two have cordial exchanges, Reno tries to dig into an oblivious Macreedy's past and the more he does, the more it actually reveals about himself: a racist bigot jealous of some Japanese settler and who couldn't even enlist after Pearl Harbor. There's an ugly past kept secret in that town that didn't take part to the call of history, betraying the old ideals, and perverting the most noble figures. That the sherif sleeps in his own jail is revealing of that failure.
In this town that belongs to no time, even youth is compromised, the young Peter Wirth played by Eric Ericson is constantly cut off by peer pressure, and his sister (Anne Francis) had her infatuation with Reno corrupting her mind. Reno is a leader but by default: better be master in hell than servant in heaven so he boosts his troop, accusing Macreedy of brining an infection spreading all over Black Rock. But he's twice wrong, the town was already dying within itself and Macreedy never claimed to be a hero, simply a veteran coming to give his medal to a Japanese-American whose son died in combat, saving his life. Had everyone acted normally and told him that Komoko died, no suspicion would have been raised. Instead, their cagey attitude and defiance pushed Macreedy to his investigation till Komoko's place where oddly placed flowers hinted at more than a buried secret. The film has the merit to be one of the first to deal with the treatment of Japanese-Americans during the war.
And there's also the loss of masculinity, and in a poignant confrontation, Doc asks Sheriff to pull himself together and trust Macreedy who might be the antidote. The irony once again is that Macreedy didn't seek any trouble but as he told Reno, he was forced to retire from the army and was destined to a meaningless existence. His mission him Black Rock might also allow him to conquer back his pride and feel useful. And maybe that's the essence of manhood, feeling useful for a just cause. That was the sherif's who was called pathetic by Reno or taken his star without any permission, in the end, some redeem themselves, those who don't serve the just cause serve its opposite, inaction is no option and those who sin get their karmic revenge.
And this comes from a film with again, minimal action and a good deal of dialogues, many of them set in the hotel lobby that offers the perfect staging for man-to-man confrontation, and make a clever use of Cinemascope, action is provided with a car chase and a fight scene where Macreedy demonstrates his karate skills against Coley (Borgnine would take his revenge against Tracy by winning the Oscar for "Marty") and a climax that is both suspenseful, meaningful and satisfying. All in 80 minutes which is enough to cover everything and come full circle with the story that naturally ends with the train stopping for the second time to live, and a few people in Black Rock able to live up with their conscience again and an old man who didn't suspect the existential implications of his mission.