Bad Day at Black Rock
Bad Day at Black Rock is a 1955 American film noir neo-Western film directed by John Sturges with screenplay by Millard Kaufman. It stars Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan with support from Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, John Ericson, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin. The film is a crime drama set in 1945 that contains elements of the revisionist Western genre. In the plot, a one-armed stranger (Tracy) comes to a small desert town and uncovers an evil secret that has corrupted the entire community.
For the Supernatural episode, see Bad Day at Black Rock (Supernatural).Bad Day at Black Rock
Millard Kaufman
Don McGuire (adaptation)
"Bad Time at Honda"
1947 short story in The American Magazine
by Howard Breslin
Newell P. Kimlin
- January 7, 1955 (United States)
81 minutes
United States
English
$3,788,000[1]
The film was based on a short story called "Bad Time at Honda" by Howard Breslin, published by The American Magazine in January 1947. Filming began in July 1954 and the movie went on national release in January 1955. It was a box office success and was nominated for three Academy Awards in 1956. In 2018, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[3][4]
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
When Bad Day at Black Rock was released, the reviews were almost universally positive with, for example, John O'Hara in Collier's hailing it as "one of the finest motion pictures ever made".[14] Many reviewers noted the film's Western-like elements, comparing it favorably with High Noon and cinematographer William C. Mellor was widely praised for his use of widescreen.[14] Film critic Bosley Crowther of the New York Times wrote: "Slowly, through a process of guarded discourse, which director John Sturges has built up by patient, methodical pacing, an eerie light begins to glimmer".[23] At the end of 1955, the New York Times included the film in its best ten of the year.[24]
Despite a storyline she called "crudely melodramatic", Pauline Kael heaped praise on the film for its direction and cinematography, calling it "a very superior example of motion picture craftsmanship".[25] Variety magazine's reviewer wrote: "Considerable excitement is whipped up in this suspense drama, and fans who go for tight action will find it entirely satisfactory. Besides telling a yarn of tense suspense, the picture is concerned with a social message on civic complacency".[26] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 33 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.2/10.[27]