Mountain FogRETROSPECT: BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (1955)
January 8th 2009 08:32
Spencer Tracy in Bad Day At Black Rock
A streamliner train hurtles through the 1945 desert. It sparkles in the vivid sunlight as it rushes onward, urged forward by a dramatic Andre Priven score. When the giant locomotive does come to a stop it’s only briefly, and in a town that hasn’t been graced with its static edifice in four years. Off the train hops a one-armed stranger in black suit and hat, carrying a single small suitcase.
Thus begins the clawing tension of Bad Day At Black Rock, one of the finest pieces of Film Noir to have ever graced the silver screen. The one-armed man is Macreedy (Spencer Tracey), a war veteran keen to find Kamoko, a Japanese farmer and father of a recently deceased war buddy. Once he arrives in the barren, dusty and forgotten town of Black Rock, however, he encounters a tiny community determined not to help and either paralysed by fear or burning with aggression.
Of course, the denizens of Black Rock harbour a secret, one that they are desperate to keep under wraps. As Macreedy sizes up the town’s inhabitants, so they size him up also. His purpose, physicality and inscrutable personality have them immediately on edge. "He's no salesman," says Doc Velie (Walter Brennan) after an early encounter, "that's sure, unless he's peddling dynamite." Thus Macreedy is on a collision course with the snarling, aggressive rancher, Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) and his cabal of active and passive co-conspirators, most prominent among them being the vulgar thugs Hector (Lee Marvin) and Coley (Ernest Borgnine).
While Bad Day At Black Rock is first and foremost a minimalist, modern take on the Western, it’s the Film Noir aspects of the picture that lend it a lasting resonance. Certainly the (at the time) not often touched upon issue of American racism is central to the film, but Bad Day At Black Rock also wrestles in semi-protest with the McCarthyism of the times. Director John Sturges, producer Howard Hoffman and screenwriters Millard Kaufman & Don McGuire paint a picture of a town that not only witch hunts outsiders, but also bullies into apathetic acquiescence those who might have otherwise stood up in protest.
It’s highly effective stuff and as the redoubtable Macreedy refuses to be stonewalled, his antagonists grow all the more desperate to stop him finding out the truth about Kamako. Macreedy’s mysterious nature further raises the tension; as the audience are left to wonder about some of the real motivations of the character, they are forced to sympathise slightly with the hysterical Smith and his bovver boys.
So Sturges, his screenwriters and cinematographer William C. Mellor weave their web, often to dazzling effect. Indeed, Mellor’s widescreen photography is brilliant and adds immeasurably to the suffocating tension that tightens its grip around your throat like Smith white-knuckling each end of his dusty bandana. The players too are almost uniformly brilliant: Tracy truly lives his character while Ryan is his antagonistic best. Elsewhere, Lee Marvin chews scenery as the menacing Hector.
Bad Day At Black Rock possesses an ending that is perhaps a little disappointing, both in terms of onscreen action and the sewing up of its bristling subtext and themes. It’s forgivable, however, when attached to such a fine and distinctive piece of celluloid.
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Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Missed this when you first wrote it.
As i said on Matt's blog its an all time favourite of mine. John Sturges really mined his subjects well and managed to entertain while never losing site of his films deeper purposes. Much like Don Siegel.
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Marvin was amazing once he learnt how much power and pressence he had onscreen....another early one I always groove on is in Fritz Lang's The Big Heat. I've reviewed several of his films on my site including point Blank, hell in The Pacific, The Killers and The Dirty Dozen.