The Cottage Road Cinema in Headingley is the oldest indie cinema in Leeds and has been continuously showing films since 1912. As such it is regarded with fondness by much of the north Leeds community and long may it continue. Anyway, it has a classics night every month, where viewers can watch a series of nostalgic ads and previews from back in the day, prior to settling back with a fairly-priced box of popcorn to enjoy a classic movie, selected for its historical, cultural or aesthetic significance. Last month, for example, I went to see Hitchcock’s Rear Window; next month I’m tempted by Irving Rapper’s Now, Voyager; and this month I went to see the subject of this blog, John Sturges’ Bad Day at Black Rock.
Bad Day at Black Rock is a 1955 American neo-Western film starring Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan with support from Walter Brennan, Anne Francis, John Ericson, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin. The term “neo-Western” does not signify a western movie as such, and instead implies the use of certain themes and motifs redolent of westerns but set in more modern times (in this case, 1945). Really, it’s a crime drama but it contains the wide, open plains and desert landscapes of the western, and Spencer Tracy’s “stranger comes to town and is met with unfriendly suspicion” persona is top-drawer Clint Eastwood.
Tracy plays a one-armed stranger, John Macreedy, who disembarks from the train that rarely stops in the isolated desert hamlet of Black Rock and is soon put under hostile scrutiny from the locals who lounge on the wooden verandas of the saloon and bar-and-grill and wonder who the hell this new guy is and what the hell does he want? At this point I should say that if I were harbouring a dark secret – which you can be sure these Black Rock locals certainly are — and a stranger comes to town asking questions, I would put on a friendly and cooperative façade to deflect suspicion. This lot, however, opt for the acute hostility and evasiveness approach and thus come across as guilty as sin from the get-go, with Borgnine and Marvin in particular pushing the envelope in the “I’ve clearly got something to hide” department.
Still, Macreedy’s been asking questions about a certain Japanese-American gentleman named Komoko, but nobody seems to want to engage. Robert Ryan’s character Reno Smith is clearly in charge and holds the rest of the town in his thrall, including the ineffectual, alcoholic sheriff. Smith claims that Komoko was simply interned during World War II but also reveals his virulent anti-Japanese sentiment developed after Pearl Harbor — we the audience are only too aware that something dodgy has gone down and not only that but Macreedy himself needs to be in fear for his own life. Macreedy gradually breaks down the omerta of the townsfolk and begins to separate the real culprits from the simply scared, some of whom are inspired by Macreedy to step up. It’s a tour de force of psychological drama, with great tough-guy dialogue and the stunning backdrop of the Mohave desert, and well worth my punt in venturing out on a Wednesday night!
Let’s watch Macreedy, despite his one arm, getting the better of thug Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine), in this tense encounter.
