This post contains spoilers. I assume you've seen the film or don't care about spoilers. You can watch the trailer at the bottom of this post.

The Credits

Bad Day at Black Rock is directed by John Sturges and stars Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine.

The Plot

A few years after World War 2, John J. Macreedy (played by Spencer Tracey) arrives by train in a very small town in the Western desert. He is missing most of his left arm from the war. The townsfolk immediately greet him with suspicion. Led by Reno Smith (Robert Ryan), just about everyone in town seems to want to see him leave. Reno has Hector David (Lee Marvin) and Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine) try to run him out of town or provoke a response to their tactics. Macreedy is looking for a Japanese man named Komoko. Reno says he was interned at a concentration camp. It is later revealed that Reno and his friends killed Komoko. Macreedy was there because Komoko's dead son saved his life in the war. He wanted to deliver his son's medal of honor to his father. After Reno kills Liz (Anne Francis) for attempting to help Macreedy, the other men in town turn on Reno, Hector and Coley and have them arrested for their crimes, allowing Macreedy to return to Los Angeles.

Thoughts on the Film

This film is an early modern Western, which for its time seems a bit unusual. Even though set in the 40's, it has the look, feel and themes of a Western. It also is a film noir, although the bright color photography may not make it so apparent. The town has progressed little since the turn of the century. Cars have replaced horses, but the town is otherwise a typical town as seen in any John Wayne movie. There is a sheriff that is appointed by the richest man in town. There is a hotel, a tavern and a diner that serve as the social centers of the town. The veterinarian is also a mortician.

There appears to be only one woman in town for most of the movie. Atypically, she has a the job most associated with masculinity, being the town's mechanic. I want to touch on this for a moment as it seems significant that the mechanic is the only modern job position in the entire town. The men represent a past that should no longer exist in the 20th Century. Liz represents the modern world, both in the fact she has a job as well as the nature of her work. She dreams of leaving the town but doesn't want to leave behind her brother, who works as both the hotel clerk and as the telephone switchboard operator. This film takes place at the end of World War 2. During the war, many women went to work in factories while much of the male workforce was away at war. Yet, none of the men in this town appeared to have served in the war. Reno states that he tried to enlist after Pearl Harbor, but failed the physical. In a way, the men in the town are all emasculated. In their drunkenness, a number of them partook in killing Komoko. And now, a much older war veteran has arrived to expose the murder.

It seems significant that although Reno has money and land, with Hector and Coley as his hired ranch hands, none of these three men have any clear job roles in the town. Even though they appear to run the town, their actual jobs lay outside the town center. The sheriff, hotel clerk, the mortician and others have had some role in either covering up or partaking in the murder, yet they are also bullied by Reno and his men into remaining silent.

The economics of the town is a mystery, which also can play a part in the criminal activity covered up by the town. The sheriff uses his jail cell mainly for sleeping. He is aware of a murder but does nothing. The veterinarian is also a mortician, yet there are no horses and very few people seem to have needed the services of an official burial. The train hasn't stopped in town in four years, yet there is a man working at the railroad depot. The men spend much time just sitting around. Other than Liz, there appear to be no women around. There is a uselessness that pervades the whole town. This came to a head when Reno (and possibly others) was not allowed to serve in the war. In a drunken state, they eventually took out their anger over the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor by singling out the only Japanese man in town. They burned his home, shot him and buried his body in an unmarked grave.

Through most of the film, Macreedy retains his cool, refusing to react to the provocations of Hector and Coley. Some of the best scenes involve these three men. In an early scene, Macreedy returns to his hotel room to find Hector on his bed. Hector repeatedly calls the much older Maceedy "boy" and chastises him for not standing up for himself. Later, Coley demands Macreedy move from his seat at the diner, then pours ketchup in his food to spark a reaction. When does finally react, he does so by samacking and chopping him with his one good hand, leaving Coley exposed as all talk.

The film is remarkable in its depiction of the evil of racism. The American internment of Japanese-Americans was largely ignored for many decades, but it's prominent in the plot of this film. The film presents a lesson that still works today as we see the aftershock of nearly two decades of America's response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001.

This trailer is the property of Warner Brothers Pictures