Antonius Block In 1955, as repugnance of McCarthyism raged in America, this film emerged, trying to come to terms with racism and the treatment of Japanese-Americans during the war. What an extraordinary thing that is, acknowledging a shameful injustice at a time when some considered it subversive to do so. Spencer Tracy is in the lead role of a lone, one-arm stranger who gets off a train in a dusty town in the middle of nowhere at the film's beginning. He's met with rude behavior from the townsfolk from the start, and director John Sturges is brilliant in gradually ramping this up to outright hostility. The town has a secret surrounding a Japanese-American we never see, because he disappeared shortly after Pearl Harbor. Tracy's character feels a debt to this man because his son died trying to save his life in Italy. He's just one quiet man against a group of racist thugs, whose ringleader is played well by Reno Smith, and his own safety becomes seriously threatened. It has the feel of classic westerns, but with a very different reason for the conflict. One of the wonderful aspects about the film is that there is only one exchange that reveals the ugliness of this guy's beliefs, that there was no difference between Japanese-Americans and those who bombed Pearl Harbor or who tortured Americans on the Bataan Death March. There are no others; the beliefs simply lie buried and dormant, under what to the dominant culture will appear a rural but 'normal' town. There are those who know what happened is wrong, but are complicit in their silence. In all of this, it's easy to see the parallels to racism today. The strongest performance in the film comes from Lee Marvin, who is seriously creepy and intimidating as one of the heavies. Ernest Borgnine is also very good as another, and the scene he has with Tracy in the diner, pushing him to the very limit, is one of the film's best. Spencer Tracy is strong, but I have to say, at 55, he was probably a little bit too old for the role, Oscar nomination notwithstanding.The film is well paced at just 81 minutes, which is just right for the story. It's unfortunate that the musical score wasn't as restrained. Andre Previn's score is over-the-top and far too expressive in several of the film's scenes. It's also a little odd that the town, as small as it is, appears to have one and only one woman (Anne Francis). With that said, how fantastic the film's message is, that standing up for what's right sometimes means standing up for a powerless minority, and there is a need to speak up instead of remaining silent. It channels the best of what America should be, made in 1955 at a time when those values were threatened, and viewed 63 years later, when this humble reviewer can't help but feel they are threatened again.

mgtbltp Film Soleil, those sun baked, filled with light, desert/tropical Noir/Neo Noirs."Change the darkened street to a dry, sun-beaten road. Convert the dark alley to a highway mercilessly cutting through a parched, sagebrush-filled desert. Give the woman cowboy boots and stick her in a speeding car, driven by a deranged man whose own biological drives lead him less often to sex than to fights over money. Institute these changes (to film noir) and you have film soleil." - DK HolmIn the city it's usually what you can't see that can kill you. In the desert everything you see can kill you.Desert, the anti-city. Wide open spaces, exposed, agoraphobia. A stream-liner is snaking. A steel sidewinder.Black Rock. Nowheresville. A Death Valley desert fly speck. Whistle stop. Somewhere on the California/Nevada border. The Southern Pacific RR. A dirt road main street. A baker's dozen collection of dilapidated buildings. The station. The beanery, Sam's Bar & Grill. A General Store abutting a barber shop. A two story hotel. A sawbones/morticians, a gas station, two residences and a rinky-dink hoosegow.It must be Saturday. Hicksville. Everybody's in town. Cowboy porch lizards. Relaxin'. Shootin' the breeze. Waiting' for the Streamliner to blow through. She's Greased lightning. Like clockwork. The day's big excitement. A faint rumble. The train's a coming'. You can hear the drone of the F7's down the valley. The pitch changes. The horn blares. Station agent excited. She's stopping. A train hasn't stopped here in four years. What's up. Lizards all rubbernecking.A man gets off. Looks like a city slicker. Suit, tie, fedora, suitcase. A Stranger. Ex career vet. A one hand man, Macreedy (Tracy).Adobe Flat! The name raises bristles. He's looking' fer Komoko. It stirs the hornet's nest. The lizards get standoff-ish. Hostile. Downright cantankerous. The crap hits the fan. Oh Komoko he left town they tell him, sent to an internment camp.They telephone the biggest toad in their pond Reno Smith (Ryan). But the cat's already out of the bag. Something is wrong, slantindicular, cattywampus. Macreedy knows they're lying. But he doesn't know why.Cowboy Coley (Borgnine) is glassing Macreedy from a boulder patch. He ambushes him on the way back to town. Tries to run him off the road. Back in town Coley is still trying to provoke, trying to raise sand. Spencer Tracy goes from stoically laconic to determinedly obsessed as the odds and the towns alienation build against him. Robert Ryan's unfriendly persuasion streaks more vicious as the truth is slowly exposed. Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin are the two town bullies both are a few cards short of a full deck. Dean Jagger the town lawman and Walter Brennan a sawbones/mortician are the town drunks. John Ericson is a fidgety hotel keeper and Anne Francis servers as the film's nominal femme fatale.The film juxtaposes the high desert grit of a weathered bleached bones town against a backdrop of astonishing but desolate beauty. The film has a fascinating Edward Hopperesque realism look to it. This was MGM's first release in Cinemascope. 10/10

Claudio Carvalho When the streamliner stops at Black Rock for the first time in four years, the mysterious one-armed stranger John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) disembarks and asks how to reach Adobe Flat to meet the Japanese- American farmer Kamoko. He is not allowed to check-in the hotel and he is not able to rent a car. Soon he notes that the sheriff is a drunkard and the resident Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) rules the place with his henchmen Hector David (Lee Marvin) and Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine). Further he feels that the inhabitants are hiding something. When he finally succeeds to rent a jeep from Liz Wirth (Anne Francis), he drives to Adobe Flat and finds the farmhouse burned to the ground. He immediately concludes what might have happened to Kamoko and tries to communicate with the state police, but he discovers that communication is controlled by Smith. Further, the veterinarian Doc Velie (Walter Brennan) tells that his life is in danger and unsuccessfully tries to help him to escape. Who is John J. Macreedy and what will happen to him?"Bad Day at Black Rock" is a tense thriller with great screenplay, direction and performances. The secrets about the behavior of the inhabitants and who Macreedy is holds the attention and makes also the viewer nervous. The trio of villains is perfect with Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Conspiração do Silêncio" ("Conspiracy of the Silence")

jimbo-53-186511 Bad Day at Black Rock uses paranoia as its main basis for creating tension. In fairness, this is a fairly effective foundation in the beginning; Spencer Tracey plays John J Macreedy who is a stranger that arrives in a small town in which the locals are suspicious of anyone who's considered an outsider. This aspect is also quite interesting as it does seem to play on the old cliché that everyone in a small town is suspicious of all strangers. The paranoia aspect is also intriguing; Macreedy is met with hostility when he tries to check in to a hotel, all the locals give him a hard time and basically try to drive him out of town. The paranoia is a good foundation to build the film upon, but the problem for me is that it was far too drawn out in this film. It's around about an hour into the film before anything really happens and it did start to become a bit tiresome to be honest. There is enough intrigue to make the film watchable and I wouldn't really describe it as being boring, but the paranoia aspect started to become a bit of a gimmick and for the most part it seemed to be the only thing that was driving the narrative. Let's all be honest, did anything really happen in the first hour?Acting wise, only Tracy and Borgnine stood out as being truly excellent, although the rest of the main cast do put in reasonable performances.Thankfully, the final 20 minutes or so was pretty good and we finally learned why Macreedy had come back to find Kumoko (My thoughts on this aspect of the plot were 'well better late than never' - I would have been even more annoyed if this aspect had been left unexplained). In some ways although the final 20 minutes were pretty good, the change of pace actually came as a shock. I personally felt the ending was somewhat rushed, but then again I may have just felt that way because the first hour of the film was so slow in comparison.Bad Day at Black Rock is a reasonably good film, but my main issue is that the plot was quite thin and it didn't help that the paranoia gimmick was drawn out for far too long. If you're a fan of Westerns then I would still suggest checking it out as it is watchable at the very least.