Classic Films in Focus: MYSTERY STREET (1950)

The visual and narrative style of Mystery Street (1950) will be familiar to anyone who watches modern police procedurals on television, especially shows that feature a lot of forensic analysis of corpses and crime scenes. Those looking for the intensity of top-shelf crime pictures will probably be disappointed, even with John Sturges in the director's chair and Ricardo Montalbán taking the lead as the police detective trying to catch a young woman's murderer. Still, the picture has its charms, especially for fans of the great Elsa Lanchester and those who really appreciate the piece-by-piece and bone-by-bone puzzle solving of forensic crime shows like Bones and the many iterations of CSI. 

Ricardo Montalbán stars as Lieutenant Peter Moralas, a police detective working in Cape Cod and Boston to solve the murder of Vivian Heldon (Jan Sterling), whose skeletal remains are found months after she is last seen with a very drunk Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson). With only bones to examine at first, Moralas turns to Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett), a Harvard forensics expert, for help in identifying the body and building a case to find her killer. Henry's wife, Grace (Sally Forrest), persists in believing in his innocence even as evidence against Henry mounts, while Vivian's shady landlady, Mrs. Smerrling (Elsa Lanchester), tries to blackmail the real killer, a wealthy family man named James Harkley (Edmon Ryan).

It's not a spoiler to reveal the identity of the murderer because the movie does that in its opening, which shows us the events of the night Vivian dies and makes it clear that Henry is innocent. Thus, the audience always knows what Moralas and his associates are trying to learn, and the suspense lies in our concern that the cops will pin the crime on the wrong man. We have the completed puzzle in front of us, while the detectives have to find and try to fit each piece, and we can see how they get it wrong as they rush to convict the most obvious suspect. While Moralas tears apart the lives of the young couple, who are still grieving the child Grace miscarried on the night of the murder, we watch the crafty Mrs. Smerrling put the truth together like a blackmailing Miss Marple, but she has no interest in sharing her information with the cops. The picture lavishes attention on the amazing potential of forensic science but doesn't seem especially interested in making Moralas and the police in general look good, even at the end when Moralas weakly attempts to apologize to Grace for everything he has forced her and her husband to endure. 

The performances are a mixed bag, as well, but a few standouts are worth noting. Montalbán does a fine job with his character, although Moralas is not as developed and interesting as one would like for a protagonist. He has a few scenes that address his obvious identity as an outsider, and it's nice to see him push back against Harkley's prejudice and preening sense of superiority. Harkley himself is not a very interesting villain, just another rich white guy who thinks the world revolves around him, and Henry Shanway and Dr. McAdoo are both more plot devices than people. The female characters possess all the nuance and complexity the men lack, starting with Jan Sterling as the doomed Vivian, who isn't perfect but still deserves a lot better than her fate. Sally Forrest channels the helpless rage and grief of Grace Shanway beautifully, while Betsy Blair makes the most of her handful of scenes as Vivian's housemate, Jackie. Elsa Lanchester gives the scene-stealing performance of the picture as the greedy landlady, always assessing every situation and conversation for an opportunity to profit off from it, even though she underestimates her own peril in trying to blackmail a man she knows to be a murderer. 

John Sturges made several undisputed classics, including Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Magnificent Seven (1960), and The Great Escape (1963). Mystery Street came on the heels of a very busy 1949 for Ricardo Montalbán, when he appeared in the Esther Williams musical romance, Neptune's Daughter, the gritty noir, Border Incident, and the war picture, Battleground, which also stars Marshall Thompson. See more of Jan Sterling in Johnny Belinda (1948), Ace in the Hole (1951), and The High and the Mighty (1954), the last of which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Catch Sally Forrest in a starring role in Ida Lupino's Not Wanted (1949), and don't miss Betsy Blair's Oscar-nominated performance in Marty (1955). For more of the brilliant Elsa Lanchester, see The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Ladies in Retirement (1941), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), and Bell, Book and Candle (1959). She's iconic in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), of course, but it doesn't give her nearly enough to do. If you want to see Lanchester as a proper detective, she plays a parody of Miss Marple in the star-studded mystery comedy, Murder by Death (1976).

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).