BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK

US, 1954, 84 minutes, Colour.
Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, John Ericson, Dean Jogger, Walter Brennan, Anne Francis, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin.
Directed by John Sturges.

Bad Day At Black Rock, marked the emergence of John Sturges as a major director and the film 1s considered 6y most critics as something of a classic Western - contemporary yet exploring the effects of some of the Western myths of the past.

The film is concise, set in Black Rock, with action covering only twenty-four hours. It has an element of mystery as a stranger steps off a train which has not stopped at Black Rock 1n four years. Gradually he uncovers secrecy, bullying, guilt and shame, and opens up a racist theme - U.S. attitudes towards American Japanese during the war. The film is melodramatic, but tightly tense, unified by the commanding performance of Spencer Tracy as the one-armed stranger who is forced to fight for survival with his wits and physically while he exposes guilt. The supporting cast is excellent, performing in roles we are accustomed to see them in, but effective nonetheless.

A serious film which holds the interest.

1. Was this a Western? - note the ingredients of Westerns - the geographical setting, its harsh and frontier isolation, its vehicles, weapons, legends, victim, heroes and heroics, its melodramatics.

2. Discuss the theme of guilt in the film - the secrecy of the town, the social guilt and its demoralising effect, drunkenness, prejudice, fear of a boss, and greed.

3. What comment on American racism is made in the film - the role of the Japanese American, Pearl Harbour and the shooting, the son saving a life in war?

4. The nature of toughness - tough poses and attitudes, bullying versus truth and efficient training (the one-armed man felling a bully with karate chops)?

5. Discuss the goodness and badness in each of the principal

6. characters, especially their selfishness and the way they used each other.

7. This film is considered a classic Western melodrama (despite Andre Previn's exaggerated score). Do you agree?