FRIDAY NIGHT BOYS: Bad Day At Black Rock

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Bad Day At Black Rock

Bad Day At Black Rock (1954) is John Sturges’ taut modern-day Western Noir set in a hostile small town surrounded by a barren desert and mountains and populated by bigots, thugs and people living with a terrible secret. A one-armed stranger, John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy), arrives not on a horse but on a train, the Streamliner, making an unscheduled stop.

This was the first MGM film to be shot in Cinemascope and the wide shots of the harsh environment immediately create a sense of the oppressive forces that Macreedy will have to overcome. He arouses suspicion among the local toughs, notably rancher Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) and his sidekick thug Hector David (Lee Marvin), when he asks the whereabouts of a man called Komoko. They tell him he no longer lives there; he had been interred as a Japanese American, after the attack on Pearl Harbour. Every where he turns, he’s stonewalled. The sheriff (Dean Jagger) is afraid of Smith; the undertaker (Walter Brennan) tells him to get out of town; he is harassed by another thug, Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine),

who picks a fight with him despite Macreedy’s attempts to turn the other cheek; the only person who shows him sympathy is Liz Wirth, the sister of the desk clerk at the hotel. The town hasn’t had another visitor in four years and is effectively under the control of Smith and his henchmen.

When Smith admits Komoko is dead, Macreedy drives out to the farm he owned and discovers it’s burned to the ground, but the well is full of water and there is a patch of ground covered with wildflowers. He tells Smith, whose racism towards the Japanese is obvious, that he suspects the flowers cover a grave.

Gradually, it emerges that something terrible happened four years earlier, but Smith rules the town by fear and no-one is prepared to speak out. When Macreedy tries to send a telegram to the police, it isn’t sent, but he uses his skills at karate to floor Trimble when he starts a fight with him and he tells Smith he knows he killed Komoko and that he must have had help.

The other townspeople begin to turn and the undertaker accuses Hastings (Russell Collins), the telegraph operator of committing a federal crime for not sending Macreedy’s message; however, when the sheriff tries to do something about it, Smith snatches his badge and gives it to Hector, who tears up the telegram.

Although the sheriff refuses to get involved, Macreedy works on Pete Wirth (John Ericson), who finally reveals what happened. Komoko had leased farmland from Smith, who knew that there was no water there, but when he found some, the value of the land increased and Smith was unable to break the lease. When America entered the war, Smith was turned down and took out his aggression, by now fuelled by drink, on Komoko. Although he barricaded himself in his home, Smith and his men set it alight and, to Pete’s horror, he shot Komoko when he tried to escape.

We learn that Macreedy’s life had been saved by Komoko’s son in Italy during the war and he was bringing the son's medal to his father.

Pete lures Hector into the hotel office, where Doc Velie knocks him out and Liz drives Macreedy out of town. However, she stops the Jeep in a canyon and Macreedy knows he has been betrayed. Smith fires at him and Liz is shot when she runs to see him. He tells her she must die with his confederates and when she runs, he shoots her in the back. Poetic justive is served when Macreedy fashions a molotov cocktail and throws it as Smith. The nest day,he takes the injured Smith back to town; the sheriff has jailed David and Trimble and the police are called.
Macreedy boards the train and the undertaker, Doc Velie asks for Komoko’s medal to help the town to heal. He gives it to him and leaves.

Like many noble examples of this most elastic of genres, the film takes the conventions of the Western and uses them to craft a story of bigotry towards Japanese citizens and criticism of the wartime internment policy practised by the United States, but it takes on an extra resonance in the era of McCarthyism and the dangers of conforming and being passive out of fear.

Bad Day At Black Rock (1954) dir. John Sturges writ. Millard Kaufman (based on the story by Howard Breslin) cine. William C. Mellor edt. Newell P. Kimlin music. Andre Previn star. Spencer Tracy (John McCreedy), Robert Ryan (Reno Smith), Anne Francis (Liz Wirth), John Erickson (Pete Wirth), Ernest Borgnine (Coley Trimble), Lee Marvin (Hector David), Dean Jagger (the Sheriff), Walter Brennan (Doc), Russell Collins (Telegraph man)