While the America of the ten to fifteen years following the end of World War II was one marked by the hysteria of Joe McCarthy's railing against Communism, one other form of hysteria that Americans would rather have not talked about was the racism directed at those of Japanese origin, simply because of what the Imperial Japanese Navy did on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor. Indeed, exactly ten years after that war ended, a big time Hollywood film dealt rather concisely with that form of racism, and did so in a way that also roped in certain elements of that most American of genres, the Western. That film was BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK.
Filmed on location near Lone Pine, at the foot of California's eastern Sierra Nevada, and not too far from the Manznnar detention camp, BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK stars Spencer Tracy as a one-armed World War II veteran who has come to this very small town along a railroad line to find the Japanese soldier who saved his life during an important battle in the Pacific and give him the hero's medal he felt he deserved. But what he finds is that this town has a fairly ugly secret to hide about that soldier; and the townsfolk don't take too kindly to this "outsider" snooping around, even if he did fight and almost die for the country these people so openly, but also somewhat self-righteously, take pride in. The town is basically controlled by a strong-arm rancher named Reno Smith (the inimitable Robert Ryan), who is backed up by a pair of equally tough associates (Lee Marvin; Ernest Borgnine); and the three men, each of whom have their own twisted reasons, make life very interesting, not to mention very rough, for Tracy as he tries to find out the truth. But there are also townsfolk, including Walter Brennan and Anne Francis, who are sympathetic to Tracy's cause, and give him information that proves very valuable to him...and damaging to the three tough guys.
Very brilliantly directed by journeyman John Sturges, BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK is a genuinely taut and suspenseful modern-day Western, with certain inspiration taken from the 1952 classic HIGH NOON. If, as it has sometimes been remarked, Tracy seemed a bit up there in years to be playing a World War II veteran, he nevertheless conveys the maximum amount of gravitas required for his role, where he has to get to the unfortunate and dirty truth, and how an act of getting "patriotic drunk" led to a totally unjustifiable crime and a subsequent cover-up. Marvin and Borgnine (the latter of whom would actually win a Best Actor Oscar the same year for his far more sympathetic role in MARTY), both of whom were known for playing tough guys, both good and (in this case) evil, are exceptionally menacing. It is Ryan, however, who truly stands out because of the authoritarian look on his face that often made it easy to cast him as an incredibly evil bastard, sometimes (as in here, or in 1947's CROSSFIRE, where he played an anti-Semitic soldier) motivated by racism. In truth, Ryan was known as one of Hollywood's greatest humanitarians and one of its staunchest political progressives, especially during the 1950's, when being so could (and often did) get people blacklisted as Commies.
With a taut and suspenseful scrip by Millard Kaufman, and a brilliant score by Andre Previn, who after having achieved success in Hollywood went on to have an even more successful classical conducting career (particularly with the London Symphony Orchestra in the 1970's), BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK stands out as a powerful film, one of the first to examine the much darker side of American patriotism and even the values espoused in the Old West that still hung over rural America in its post-World War II period, and certainly worthy of its having been put in the National Film Registry in 2018. It is a must-see to this day, whether one is a fan of social-political films, film-noir, or Westerns.
Filmed on location near Lone Pine, at the foot of California's eastern Sierra Nevada, and not too far from the Manznnar detention camp, BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK stars Spencer Tracy as a one-armed World War II veteran who has come to this very small town along a railroad line to find the Japanese soldier who saved his life during an important battle in the Pacific and give him the hero's medal he felt he deserved. But what he finds is that this town has a fairly ugly secret to hide about that soldier; and the townsfolk don't take too kindly to this "outsider" snooping around, even if he did fight and almost die for the country these people so openly, but also somewhat self-righteously, take pride in. The town is basically controlled by a strong-arm rancher named Reno Smith (the inimitable Robert Ryan), who is backed up by a pair of equally tough associates (Lee Marvin; Ernest Borgnine); and the three men, each of whom have their own twisted reasons, make life very interesting, not to mention very rough, for Tracy as he tries to find out the truth. But there are also townsfolk, including Walter Brennan and Anne Francis, who are sympathetic to Tracy's cause, and give him information that proves very valuable to him...and damaging to the three tough guys.
Very brilliantly directed by journeyman John Sturges, BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK is a genuinely taut and suspenseful modern-day Western, with certain inspiration taken from the 1952 classic HIGH NOON. If, as it has sometimes been remarked, Tracy seemed a bit up there in years to be playing a World War II veteran, he nevertheless conveys the maximum amount of gravitas required for his role, where he has to get to the unfortunate and dirty truth, and how an act of getting "patriotic drunk" led to a totally unjustifiable crime and a subsequent cover-up. Marvin and Borgnine (the latter of whom would actually win a Best Actor Oscar the same year for his far more sympathetic role in MARTY), both of whom were known for playing tough guys, both good and (in this case) evil, are exceptionally menacing. It is Ryan, however, who truly stands out because of the authoritarian look on his face that often made it easy to cast him as an incredibly evil bastard, sometimes (as in here, or in 1947's CROSSFIRE, where he played an anti-Semitic soldier) motivated by racism. In truth, Ryan was known as one of Hollywood's greatest humanitarians and one of its staunchest political progressives, especially during the 1950's, when being so could (and often did) get people blacklisted as Commies.
With a taut and suspenseful scrip by Millard Kaufman, and a brilliant score by Andre Previn, who after having achieved success in Hollywood went on to have an even more successful classical conducting career (particularly with the London Symphony Orchestra in the 1970's), BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK stands out as a powerful film, one of the first to examine the much darker side of American patriotism and even the values espoused in the Old West that still hung over rural America in its post-World War II period, and certainly worthy of its having been put in the National Film Registry in 2018. It is a must-see to this day, whether one is a fan of social-political films, film-noir, or Westerns.