The movie opens with a sleek train pulling into the sleepy desert town of Black Rock. This is a noteworthy occurrence, as nobody in the town can remember the last time the streamliner stopped in the all but dead town. A lone passenger, a man dressed in black with a black hat, gets off the train. The man has his inert left hand jammed into his jacket pocket - a one armed man.

It is after World War II. The man (Spencer Tracy) enters the hotel and requests a room, which is denied. Helping himself to a key he takes his suitcase upstairs. He briefly leaves his room and returns finding a cowboy (Lee Marvin) lying on his bed. From all the suspicious behavior, the viewer gets the idea that the townsfolk are hiding something. Macreedy (Tracy) meets the "boss" of the town, Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) whose thugs unsuccessfully try to goad him into a fight. Macreedy avoids trouble and goes to see the cowardly sheriff and asks how to get to Adobe Flat. He wants to find a resident called Komoko. This only sets off more alarm bells among the citizens when he asks around some more. Reno Smith tells Macreedy that Komoko, a Japanese American, was interned back in 1941 and has not returned. By this time the viewer frankly suspects that the townsfolk are a bunch of inbred rednecks in the worst sense of the word.

Macreedy hires a jeep at the garage and drives out to Adobe Flat. The town no longer exists. He notices some fresh wild flowers growing in one spot out in the barren landscape… On the way back to town, he is run off the road by one of Smith's thugs (Ernest Borgnine).

Back in town Macreedy shows he can handle himself when he flattens Borgnine with a karate chop that would do James Bond proud. Now the gloves are off and the thugs are going to make sure that Macreedy neither discovers their secret nor leaves Black Rock alive.

Director John Sturges did a good job of building suspense by keeping the viewer in the dark up until the point when everybody polarizes for good. Once the secret is revealed, the ending rings somewhat false but it is still an admirable effort.

The screenplay, adapted from the Howard Breslin story by Don McGuire, follows the general idea of High Noon, a film I admit I have a generous amount of contempt for. The basic idea is that of the man alone begging for help from anybody with all his potential supporters either cowards or evildoers. The not-so-hidden idea is that "brave courageous Hollywood" (the good guy) is being persecuted by those gasp! conservatives (bad guys). Tsk tsk. A similar plot was used in Rio Bravo a John Wayne vehicle where the Duke, not asking for help but supported in spite of himself by a handful of buddies, stood off a passel of bad guys, but this filmmaker (Howard Hawks) was reacting to the left wing pap of High Noon, not agreeing with it.

There is a lot to like in Spencer Tracy's portrayal of the protagonist, but his action sequences are a little over the top. His karate comes out of the blue and rivals Frank Sinatra's in The Manchurian Candidate. But there are problems; While Macreedy is supposed to be a WWII veteran, Tracy is too old, in fact he looks like a WWI veteran. Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin, and Ernest Borgnine, top-notch actors all, are only offered under-written, cartoonish parts with little flesh on the bones of their characters. Ryan's final scene is over the top and unbelievable. The lovely Anne Francis does add a little bit of welcome eye candy to the dire tone of the film. Walter Brennan and Dean Jagger do a good job in supporting roles as the timid, apathetic, cowardly townsfolk.

As in High Noon, Bad Day at Black Rock contains the hidden railings of poor victimized Hollywood against the McCarthy Black List. While I enjoy movies for entertainment's sake, it is a little irritating to hear the self-indulgent bleating of these "message" films when the leftist moviemakers only get a taste of the slams they've been dishing out to everybody else all along.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day