Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

christopher-underwood Fantastic looking, well played, low key film that really doesn't put a foot wrong. From the wonderful opening with a locomotive coming full on (a story in itself) to the laconic ending, we are bewildered, concerned and intrigued throughout. Not a great fan of Spencer Tracy (same goes for many people he worked with as well, apparently) I found that he was very effective here. The very thing that I find difficult about him, the tendency to not make his intentions clear, work for this mystery as we struggle to ascertain quite what is going on, which is very much tied up with what has gone on in the past. Beautifully shot landscapes and sky ensure that the visuals are always up there with the ever involving dialogue.

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.

Red-125 Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) was directed by John Sturges. Sturges specialized in Westerns, especially Grade B Westerns, set in the Old West. This film--set in 1945--was Sturges' foray into the New West, but it didn't really work out that way.In this movie, Sturges simply transfers the action 70 years ahead, but the plot is the same. First of all, Black Rock is portrayed as a city to which progress has never come. So, the telephones don't work, and the characters must rely on the telegraph station. They ride cars instead of horses, but that's about it in terms of technological advances.Also, Sturges uses a classic Western theme--the protagonist just returned from war. (For example, John Wayne just home from the Civil War in "The Searchers.") The protagonist, John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) is just back from WW II. What's different--and excellent--about this movie is that Spencer Tracy was a superb actor, and Sturges gives him plenty of screen time to show us his talents. Another interesting highlight is that Macreedy is missing his left arm. That's a part for a great actor. In fact, someone has written that the missing arm was what made the character interesting enough for Spencer Tracy to agree to portray him.All the rest of the supporting cast is pretty standard Western movie talent--Robert Ryan, Walter Brennan, Lee Marvin, and Ernest Borgnine. They all portray bad guys and not-so-bad guys. The only woman in the film is played by Anne Francis. She was a pretty talented actor, but she doesn't belong in this movie. It's obvious that director Sturges thought he needed at least one woman in the film, and he picked Francis. We are to understand that she is Robert Ryan's girlfriend. So, the girlfriend of a bad guy has to be either a bad woman or terribly naive. Francis' role was so feeble that I couldn't tell which she was supposed to be.We saw this film at Rochester's wonderful Dryden Theatre, as part of an Ernest Borgnine retrospective. It will work well on the small screen, because Black Rock is a set, not a real city, and the mountain scenery looks painted.If you want to see a pretty good Western, with a truly great star, this is the film for you. It begins one day with the streamlined passenger train coming into Black Rock, and it ends the next day with the streamlined passenger train leaving Black Rock . The shots of the train are fabulous.

FilmCriticLalitRao American film 'Bad Day at Black Rock' begins with an express train running through Mojave desert in California.It makes an unscheduled stop at a small town which has not seen any train stop there for the last four years.This brief yet interesting description is enough to guarantee ample thrills to viewers.However,director John Sturges and his leading man Spencer Tracy contribute a lot to ensure that their film also discusses some issues of supreme importance especially the hypocrisy of small town people who would do anything to let some secrets remain buried in the ground.This is plenty of action in the film with imaginative use of hands and mouths.Apart from some good performances by Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine, it is actor Spencer Tracy who completely dominates the film.It is said that a leading man doesn't lose cool easily.However, no hero would keep quiet when unjustly provoked.It is precisely for this reason that he emerges as a true hero despite having a severe physical handicap.