Rent Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
4.0 of 5 from 158 ratings
1h 34min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Folks in Black Rock have their own way of welcoming mysterious, one-armed stranger John J. Macreedy. He's welcome to leave. Or they'll make sure he leaves in a pine box. Two-time Academy Award winner Spencer Tracy plays World War II veteran Macreedy, who keeps his own counsel about why he's come to Black Rock and who keeps his wits about him when confronted with threats and violence. Director John Sturges ramps up the tension while revealing Macreedy's mission and the town's grim secret. Robert Ryan, Walter Brennan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin are among the town's thugs and lap dogs.
- Actors:
- Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, John Ericson, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, Russell Collins, Walter Sande, Walter Beaver, Billy Dix, Mickey Little, K.L. Smith, Robert Griffin, Harry Harvey, Bobby Johnson, Francis McDonald
- Directors:
- John Sturges
- Producers:
- Dore Schary
- Writers:
- Millard Kaufman, Don McGuire, Howard Breslin
- Aka:
- Bad Day at Hondo
- Studio:
- Warner
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Thrillers
- Collections:
- Acting Up: Top 10 Performances At Cannes, Cinema Paradiso's 2024 Centenary Club: Part 1, Getting to Know..., Getting to Know: Kenneth Branagh, People of the Pictures, Remembering Val Kilmer, A Brief History of Film..., The Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide to: Charles Crichton, Top 10 Films About Trains: Thrillers, Top Films
- Awards:
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 21/05/2018
- Run Time:
- 94 minutes
- Languages:
- English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 2.40:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- Commentary by Film Historian Dana Polan
- Theatrical Trailer
More like Bad Day at Black Rock
Found in these customers lists
Reviews (8) of Bad Day at Black Rock
A gem. - Bad Day at Black Rock review by JG
An unexpectedly tough and finely filmed movie. Often looking like a Hopper painting, the same sunlit, empty locations and oblique characters. Tense throughout.
6 out of 6 members found this review helpful.
Justice on a One-Way Ticket - Bad Day at Black Rock review by griggs
Spencer Tracy steps off the train like a dropped match—into a town that’s all tinder, no water. Sturges strikes tension from the first frame. The desert may be vast, but Bad Day at Black Rock feels claustrophobic from the outset: one man asking questions no one wants to answer, in a place that hasn’t seen a train stop in years.
Tracy plays it calm but unflinching, a war veteran with one arm and more backbone than the entire town combined. His presence peels back the town’s shame—rooted in racism and the forgotten lives of Japanese-Americans after internment. There’s more talking than action, but the words hit like blows. When fists do fly, they land harder for the delay.
It’s slow-paced, sure—but tight. Not a minute of its trim 81 is wasted. Even the silences hum with suspicion. Only the ending feels too neat—as if, having stared into moral rot, the film blinked.
Still, for most of its runtime, this is precision cinema with real heat.
4 out of 4 members found this review helpful.
Classic Mystery Thriller - Bad Day at Black Rock review by GI
Classic and superb mystery thriller set in a small desert town in 1945 just after the Second World War has ended. The small population are overawed when the train stops at their station for the first time in four years and a stranger gets off. This is John Macreedy (Spencer Tracy), a veteran of the war where he lost an arm. He is baffled by the hostile and suspicious reception he receives from the locals. But they have a dark secret and Macreedy's reason for being there goes to the heart of it. This is a contemporary western and it follows a very common narrative arc often found in film and literature of a stranger who arrives to disrupt the calm of a place and unravels a sinister underbelly of corruption. There are also strong themes of racism, greed and bullying here and the film gets to the heart of when ordinary people turn a blind eye to a heinous crime. This is a brilliant and tense drama with a great cast that also includes Robert Ryan, who made a career out of playing bad guys, Anne Francis, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine. A topnotch film and one to seek out if you've never seen it.
3 out of 3 members found this review helpful.