Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) Directed by John Sturges Any hot summer day is a good excuse to dr
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) Directed by John Sturges Any hot summer day is a good excuse to draw the curtains, get the room dark and cool, and watch this mid-century thriller that now stands as a minor masterwork of distinctly American cinema. In an unforgettable establishing shot, one-armed WWII veteran Spencer Tracy steps off a Southern Pacific streamliner at the far end of the high desert in Nowheresville, California. Actually he’s in Black Rock, a dusty, near-vacant town surrounded on all sides by vast, dry expanses of…well, vast dry expanses.He’s looking for a Japanese man who lives a few miles away in the mountains, and he’s asking for a ride out to the property. The nine or so town residents, who range in demeanor from weirdly suspicious to full-on menacing, don’t like that idea at all. In fact, these grim heavies (Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, and Lee Marvin as a trio of Post-War rattlesnakes) don’t like Tracy on principle. After all, this is the first time in four years that train has even slowed down in Black Rock, and this visitor keeps asking about the Japanese guy even after everyone says he should forget about the Japanese guy. One can’t help suspecting that a kind of storm cloud is building strength way out near the horizon.The tension grows at an excruciating pace, thanks to a taut script superbly complemented by wide, lingering, but never wasted CinemaScope angles.(You could almost say this is why CinemaScope cameras were invented and why director John Sturges was born.) In any case, once Tracy clashes head-on with the town, the moment is like a sudden lightening bolt on a hot, dry day: no wind, no rain, just scorched earth and a cloud of dust. -- source link
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