Bad Day at Black Rock is a 1955 American 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.

Plot

In late 1945, one-armed John J. Macreedy gets off a train at the isolated Californian desert hamlet of Black Rock. The residents immediately appear suspicious, as this is the first time in four years that the train has stopped there. After Macreedy states he is looking for a man named Komoko, several of the local men become hostile. Hastings, the telegraph agent, tells him there are no taxicabs. The hotel desk clerk, Pete Wirth, claims he has no vacant rooms. Hector David threatens him. Later, Reno Smith informs Macreedy that Komoko, a Japanese-American, was interned during World War II.

Awards