Classic Films in Focus: BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (1955)

There's more than one bad day being referenced in the title, but Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) mostly focuses on the deadly 24 hours spent by Spencer Tracy's war veteran protagonist in a dusty little town that definitely doesn't want him there. It's a searing and sadly still relevant indictment of prejudice, small town corruption, and the way cowardice prevents ostensibly good people from doing what they know to be right. John Sturges, known for his Westerns and war films, directs this taut noir in a modern Western setting, and Tracy leads a cast of outstanding performers, with Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger, Lee Marvin, and Anne Francis all doing excellent work. 

Tracy plays WWII veteran John Macreedy, who lost an arm in Italy and arrives in Black Rock to present a medal to the father of the Japanese-American soldier who died saving his life. Denizens of the town are immediately suspicious of Macreedy, and their mood sours to outright hostility when they learn why he has come, with local boss Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) encouraging his henchmen, Coley (Ernest Borgnine) and Hector (Lee Marvin), to bait Macreedy at every turn. Macreedy soon realizes that Smith and his lackeys are behind the mysterious disappearance of the Japanese farmer, Komoko, but they don't intend to let Macreedy live long enough to tell the state police about their crimes.

Each character in this story represents a possible response to injustice, with Tracy's disabled veteran as our moral example and Ryan's seething racist at the other extreme. Macreedy, wanting to honor the memory of his fallen comrade and perhaps assuage his survivor's guilt, never wavers in his commitment to seeing justice done, even though it could mean his own death. He isn't temperamental or easy to bully into foolish action, which makes him particularly dangerous to the volatile, tyrannical Smith, who recognizes him as the inexorable force of justice personified. Smith puts on a friendly face at first, but it's merely a calculating facade. His need to rule over his neighbors and his vicious hatred of Japanese people soon become obvious. Coley and Hector eagerly abet Smith's reign, if only because it gives them scope to exercise their own sadistic natures and probably line their pockets at the same time. Young Pete (John Ericson) and his sister, Liz (Anne Francis), both express ambivalence at first, but each of them must eventually choose a side, and their starkly different decisions determine their fates. Good intentions and cowardice mark the characters of Doc Velie (Walter Brennan) and Sheriff Tim Horn (Dean Jagger), older men who don't condone Smith's crimes but seem unable to stand up to him until Macreedy shows them how it's done. It's worthwhile to note that Liz is the only female character we see in the entire town until the very last scene, as if Black Rock women have to stay in hiding as long as Smith's gang holds absolute sway. Black Rock is no place for them or children, either, because no one is safe as long as a ruthless tyrant rules the town.

American movies often romanticize small town life, but Bad Day at Black Rock picks up that rock to examine the venomous insects scurrying underneath. Four years before Macreedy's arrival, those insects swarmed out to murder the innocent Komoko just for being Japanese, even as his son fought for their collective freedom overseas. That was a bad day, too, but Black Rock is a place made for bad days, as Macreedy soon discovers. Small towns are prone to group think, susceptible to strong man predators, and often solipsistic in their worldviews, as they have trouble imagining that other places and people exist, much less matter. Macreedy says that he doesn't think there are a lot of towns like Black Rock in America, but the viewer ought to know better. Bad Day at Black Rock recreates World World II and the fight against the Nazi regime in a hot desert microcosm, warning us that cruelty, prejudice, cowardice, and apathy are not just problems "then" or "over there" but also, always, here and now. There's always another Reno Smith and plenty of Hectors and Coleys ready to enforce his will for their own gratification. There are plenty of "stay out of it" types, too, and those who disapprove but only wring their hands because they're afraid of incurring the bully's wrath. In the movie, Macreedy arrives on the train to save the town from itself, like a roving samurai, a lone gunfighter, or even a middle-aged, one-armed superhero, but that's the part of the story we can't depend on in real life. There's no guarantee that the train will ever stop, or that the hero we're waiting for will be on it if it does. If you have to pick a character to be in Bad Day at Black Rock (and you do), be Macreedy, and don't wait for him to be someone else.

Bad Day at Black Rock earned three Oscar nominations, including nods for Sturges and Tracy and a Best Screenplay nomination for Millard Kaufman, who adapted the story from Howard Breslin's 1947 short story, "Bad Time at Honda." Sturges' other films include Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Magnificent Seven (1960), and The Great Escape (1963), all of them terrific pictures. For a thematic Spencer Tracy double feature, pair Bad Day at Black Rock with Fury (1936) or Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Robert Ryan, often cast as a heavy in noir and Western films, also plays a prejudiced killer in Crossfire (1947), but to see him as the good guy catch The Set-Up (1949). Unlike their characters in the film, Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin, and Ernest Borgnine all served in the military during WWII. For more films about the dark side of American small towns, try Kings Row (1942), Storm Warning (1950), or Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

 

Classic Films in Focus: MARTY (1955)

Somehow I've managed to miss seeing Marty (1955) in my classic movie viewing up until this month, when I happened to find it hidden in the depths of the Prime streaming catalog on Amazon. I'm glad I finally discovered it, though, because this modest romantic drama is as sweet and compelling a picture as one could possibly want in troubled times. At only 90 minutes long, it's the shortest movie ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, but it packs those minutes with feeling in its story about a lonely butcher (Ernest Borgnine) who finds a chance at love with a shy teacher (Betsy Blair) who has also been unlucky at romance. Directed by Delbert Mann, this low-budget gem collected eight Oscar nominations and won four, with Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay in addition to the Best Picture win.

Borgnine takes the title role as Marty, a 34 year old butcher in New York whose numerous siblings have all already married and started families. Marty's old-school Italian mother (Esther Minciotti) harangues him about finding a wife of his own, but Marty's friends are only interested in conventionally attractive women who won't give Marty the time of day. Depressed about the prospect of living the rest of his life alone, Marty nonetheless ventures out to a ballroom with his friend, Angie (Joe Mantell), where he sees a heartless date ditch plain Clara (Blair) after judging her to be a "dog." Marty steps in with sympathy, and a romance blossoms between the two, but Marty's friends and family prove to be less excited about his choice than he might have expected.

With its humdrum middle class working world and plain protagonists, Marty is a welcome antidote to swoony romances of impossibly beautiful people meeting on elegant transcontinental cruises or in the streets of Paris. It doesn't try to throw a veneer of glamor over its situations or its characters, but it does examine the unrealistic ideals that both men and women, but women especially, are held to in order to be deemed worthy of love. Marty's friends are constantly leering at girlie magazines and talking about the "dames" who appear in Mickey Spillane novels, and it's clear that they have internalized the messages from those mediums. Marty might also have been looking for love in the wrong places by following their lead, and when he finds a kind, smart young woman who takes an interest in him, both his friends and even his mother are quick to criticize her for not being beautiful. Marty has to push back against that criticism and recognize the value of the opportunity that Clara represents or else risk losing it forever.

The performances by Borgnine and Blair draw us into sympathy with each of them and suggest a lot more than they actually show, which makes the short movie equal far more than the sum of its minutes. When Clara reacts negatively to Marty's awkward play for a kiss, we understand intuitively that she's frightened because she has probably never been kissed before, while Marty - still struggling with the old, bad examples that have been presented to him - opts for ardent aggression when gentleness is required. As newcomers to romance they have to stumble through their mistakes and doubts toward one another, but it's delightful to see them open up, laugh, and connect over their long first night together as they wander from place to place. Neither of them is beautiful in the classic sense, but their yearning toward one another is exquisitely so, with Clara's silent tears near the end as moving and heartbreaking as any you'll see on film.

Marty originally aired as a 1953 televised play starring Rod Steiger in the lead; online and DVD versions of that production are available if you want to compare the two. The big screen remake was the first film for director Delbert Mann, whose later work includes Desire Under the Elms (1958), That Touch of Mink (1962), and Fitzwilly (1967). Ernest Borgnine, who continued working right up until his death in 2012, can be found in films and TV series all over the place, including Johnny Guitar (1954), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), McHale's Navy (1964), The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Wild Bunch (1969), and Escape from New York (1981). Look for Betsy Blair in Another Part of the Forest (1948) and The Snake Pit (1948); her career stalled after she was blacklisted, but she got the role in Marty thanks to the demands of her husband at the time, Gene Kelly, who was able to insist that the studio use her.

Classic Films in Focus: JOHNNY GUITAR (1954)

Director Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954) has the trappings of a conventional Western, with its cowboy hats, lynch mobs, and hold ups, but the heart of the movie beats to the rhythms of melodrama and noir, and this triple blend makes the film quite a chimera. Taking the vicious rivalry of two women as its major theme, Johnny Guitar revels in a perverse reversal of the usual character tropes of the Western, even as it also explores the dangers of mob mentality seen in more traditional Westerns like The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). Joan Crawford stars with a cast that includes many Western regulars, including Ward Bond, Ernest Borgnine, John Carradine, and Royal Dano, but the fireworks between Crawford and rival actress Mercedes McCambridge will keep viewers glued to the screen.

Sterling Hayden plays the title character, a former gunslinger turned guitar player, but the real protagonist is Joan Crawford’s Vienna, who calls Johnny in as protection against the ranchers who want to close down her bar. Johnny and Vienna have history together, but Vienna has also attracted the admiration of the handsome Dancin’ Kid (Scott Brady). When the Kid and his gang hold up the bank, Vienna’s bitter rival, Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge), hopes to implicate Vienna in the crime and induce the local posse to lynch her. The Kid, meanwhile, encounters problems of his own as his gang falls apart in the aftermath of the robbery.

Vienna is a perfect character for this incarnation of Joan Crawford, with her wide, red mouth and hard eyes full of anger. She is a fury in men’s clothes, all sharp edges only rarely relieved by any hint of softness. Equally intimidating is her antagonist, Emma, who straps on a gun belt over her mourning dress to lead the posse on its bloodthirsty quest. Neither woman is represented as beautiful or vulnerable, and neither symbolizes civilization in the way the Western’s women normally do. These women hate each other so passionately that they make the men around them nervous; even Emma’s ally, McIvers (Ward Bond), flinches at Emma’s relentless wrath. The lynching attempt serves as a climactic moment, when the men, unwilling to hang a woman, tell Emma that she’ll have to kill Vienna herself.

As Johnny, Sterling Hayden plays it low key in contrast to the pitched emotions of the two women, but his presence helps to enhance the noir atmosphere. The rest of the supporting cast includes actors who are perfectly at home in a Western, particularly Ward Bond, although his part in leading the mob pales against the irresistible force of Mercedes McCambridge’s Emma. John Carradine, lurking around the edges of the picture through much of the action, makes the most of his one big scene, and Ernest Borgnine is up to no good from the first time we see him, the only really bad guy in the Dancin’ Kid’s not so bad band. Young Ben Cooper gives the gang pathos as boyish Turkey, while Royal Dano nurses a consumptive cough as Corey. The Kid's humane treatment of both, and his loyalty to them, contrasts with Borgnine's selfish Bart and the murderously self-righteous townspeople, who have the gall to accuse the Kid and his gang of being the undesirables in the area.

Take time to appreciate the film’s pointed use of symbolism, from Vienna’s carefully chosen white dress to the chandelier that features in several key scenes. The bar itself is one of the most important symbols; Vienna makes it clear that every beam and nail in the place represents some piece of herself prostituted to a parade of lusting men, much to Johnny’s distress. Given that history, the bar’s fate is not only inevitable but necessary if Johnny and Vienna are to have any hope of rebuilding their relationship, assuming they survive the deadly plans of the lynch mob and the treachery brewing in the Kid’s band of thieves.

It would be difficult to recommend another film quite like Johnny Guitar, but director Nicholas Ray also made In a Lonely Place (1950), On Dangerous Ground (1952), and Rebel without a Cause (1955). For more of Joan Crawford in the 1950s, try The Damned Don’t Cry (1950), Sudden Fear (1952), and Torch Song (1953). Sterling Hayden, best known for his noir roles, also stars in The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Crime Wave (1954), and The Killing (1956). Mercedes McCambridge won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her screen debut in All the King’s Men (1949), but you’ll also find her in Giant (1956), A Farewell to Arms (1957), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). For more conventional Westerns with Ward Bond, see John Ford classics like My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), and The Searchers (1956).