Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

I was all set to dislike this movie going in.  Partly it was the presence of Spencer Tracy, whom I've never been partial to.  Something about him always struck me as misanthropic, like there was an innate mean streak underneath, even in his comedies.  Also, the premise of the film, about a one-armed man who asks a few wrong questions in a desert town and finds his life in danger for it, seemed too contrived.  I don't usually go for those one-man-against-the-world stories, but here I was and in the interest of open-mindedness I'd try to keep an...open mind.

The film immediately gets off to an interesting, even rip-roaring, start with several shots of a Southern Pacific train speeding through the Southwest desert.  This isn't a quiet, smooth ride.  Instead, director John Sturges shows it as a series of kinetic shots, as though the train were careening toward a dangerous unknown.  Not a bad use of an opening credit sequence.

Eventually the train stops in Black Rock, small town in the middle of the desert that doesn't get too many visitors.  To call it a small town doesn't do its smallness justice.  There's one road lined by a few buildings, including a jail, diner, telegraph office, and a seldom used hotel.  It looks like a section of a larger town dropped from the sky.  Into this world steps Tracy as John Macreedy, a bit of a mystery man in a dark hat and suit.  He also only has the use of one arm.

The townfolk, mostly cowboys from a nearby (unseen) dude ranch are immediately suspicious of this newcomer.  Included are Lee Marvin at his infuriatingly best and Ernest Borgnine as that dumb-as-a-rock grinning sadist everybody knows from high school.  Also around is Anne Francis who appears to be the only woman in Black Rock.  The story doesn't delve into that one.  When Macreedy asks around how he can get to a place called "Adobe Flats," suddenly everyone clams up at those seemingly innocent words.

Enter Robert Ryan as Reno Smith, the ranch boss, who gets word of this stranger asking questions and fires off a telegraph to his man in LA to find out all he can about this Macreedy.  Don't we all wish we had a man in LA?

It's here where the writers pull a clever trick and out the townspeople as hiding something sinister.  Macreedy could've just waltzed into town and told the whole story, that a Japanese-American comrade saved his life in the war and that he was returning a posthumous medal to the man's father, a Mr. Komoko at Adobe Flats.  At that point, anybody could've made up some plausible sounding story about Mr. Komoko's absence and sent Macreedy on his way.  Instead, the writers withhold all that and have Macreedy just mention Adobe Flats.  Like he's scratching a scab and trying to dig deeper at something he has no business in.  Is he a cop?  A private investigator?  By having Macreedy hold back, the writers give Smith and company a chance to assume the worst and act guilty as sin.  They're afraid.  They're all bluster and intimidation, and underneath they're afraid.

The town's hostility at his wanting to visit Adobe Flats only arouses Macreedy's suspicions, but he gets there by renting a jeep from Francis's Liz Wirth and finds the charred remains of a farm and an unmarked grave.  It's now apparent the sinister secret everyone's hiding is a murder, and it's not hard to guess the motive.  Mr. Komoko was Japanese-American, and in the days after Pearl Harbor, someone was determined to make him pay.

After one of those "I know and you know I know" conversations between Macreedy and Smith, Macreedy senses his life is in danger if he sticks around, and that's a problem.  There's no easy way to escape Black Rock, plopped in the middle of the desert as it is, and he has to wait 24 hours for the next train to come.  Hence the "Bad Day" of the title.

Actually, the bad day turns to bad night as Smith and his cohorts prepare to carry out their sentence while Tracy fights a mental and physical battle of survival.  I've probably given too much away, but I don't think I'd shock anyone by saying the ending adheres to the Hays Code.

I think what's most striking about this film is how it's a traditional western in a lot of ways, but the West of this film isn't about freedom or wide open spaces.  This Old West is menacing and threatening.  There are open spaces, but they're not an invitation to adventure.  That dried up desert is an invitation to suicide and an illustration of the huge distance between Tracy and any potential help.  There's a lot of big sky, too, but it's strictly used as background prop.  Many times the characters are filmed in closeup with only the sky as background, which lends them an abstract appearance and draws out the unspoken evil behind those nice, polite smiles.  That silent menace was the kicker for me.  It made me really enjoy this film.

"Bad Day at Black Rock" isn't without its flaws.  I have to mention the music score.  It's an orchestral score, but aside from a bit of harmonica thrown in, it's basically a '50s melodrama score you'd expect to find in a Douglas Sirk film.  It's way overheated, and loud.  It's of its time.  Like an '80s Vangelis score, it's of its time.

The one real problem I had with the plot was the believability of Anne Francis's final betrayal.  It didn't make sense that she'd rat out her brother when he tried to help Macreedy get away in the night.  After all, she'd said earlier the only reason she was still in this town was to protect the kid.  Even if there was some rationale, I still didn't buy that she's lead Macreedy into that final confrontation like a lamb to slaughter.  That's pretty cold-blooded, and I never got a sense her character was capable of that.

Finally, it's a bit of historical irony that although this story centers on an Asian-American character there are no Asian characters onscreen.  To say there was a dearth of Asian parts in Hollywood at this time is an understatement, and that sad fact is not the sole responsibility of this film.  However, for a story that makes racial hatred so prominent, and the plight of Japanese-Americans so prominent, it's a little odd not see see a single Asian onscreen.  Not even as a member of the state police at the end as a bit of irony?  It could have happened, but I'm not sure the filmmakers even considered it.