Review: BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK / John Sturges (1955)

November 14th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan

Bad Day at Black Rock(1955)
Directed by John Sturges
Written by Millard Kaufman from Don McGuire’s adaptation of Howard Breslin’s novel Bad Day at Hondo
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine and John Ericson
Running Time: 81 mins.
Technical Specs: Photographed by William C. Mellor In and Eastmancolor

Rating:

With no more Brando goodies left to plum in the archive (my fatigued staff seemed reluctant to pay a revisionist look at Viva Zapata) our journey veered in the direction of another disturbed, perhaps the most distressed man in the annals of cinema, Robert Ryan. John Wayne was always right, Larry Fine was always wrong, and Robert Ryan was always, always troubled.

His first on-screen appearance was as an intern in the Bob Hope vehicle The Ghost Breakers. This is as good a theory as any as to what set the rugged he-man on the road to inner turmoil.

Mr. Ryan, who built his reputation playing racists, rednecks, crackers, goofballs and disillusioned vets, always displayed an uncanny ability to switch targets of hate as effortlessly as Fred Astaire changed partners. In Eddie Dmytryk’s Crossfire (1947), Ryan not only had a gripe against Jews, see, he had no fondness for “anyone who likes Jews.” In Fred Zinnemmann’s Act of Violence (1948), the mere question of how long Ryan will be staying at a hotel finds the despondent actor instantly turning on the day clerk with a gut wrenching, “Oh…I don’t know.” In Caught (1949), his melding of the fictional Charlie Kane with real life crackpot Howard Hughes gave Max Ophuls’ normally uninhibited camera just cause to dolly out. Nick Ray’s On Dangerous Ground (1952) may be the most perfectly pitched Robert Ryan performance. His tortured psyche effects, infuses and just plain annoys every character he comes in contact with.

My plucky crew’s first stop was at the 1955 John Sturges CinemaScope sermon, Bad Day at Black Rock.A mysterious one-armed man (Spencer Tracy) makes an unexpected stopover in a town so small that it makes Bogdanovich’s Anarene, TX look like a bustling metropolis. Given what Sturges shows us, the town is populated by Ryan and his band of goons (Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, John Ericson, Russell Collins) a neutral doctor (Walter Brennan), emasculated sheriff Dean Jagger and one babe, auto mechanic Anne Francis.The time is post-war America and Ryan’s Reno Smith, frustrated and 4F, finally get his hands on a “Jap.” Tracy single-handedly unravels Black Rock’s dirty secret and by my calculations, the only townsfolk left residing in Black Rock before the final credits roll are Walt and Dean.

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