 | Starring: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan Director: John Sturges Format: Closed-captioned Colour Dolby Dubbed DVD-Video Subtitled Widescreen NTSC Released: 10 May 2005 Average Rating:  |
This is, & is not, a cowboy movie. It's the late forties, just after World War II. Tracy has the left sleeve of his suit coat tucked into the pocket. He lost an arm somewhere. He's slow to anger. He has a mission. What it is, is mysterious. In fact part of the effectiveness of this unusual movie is in how mysterious everything is. Why this godforsaken town? Why are the people so uptight about his arrival? Who is he & what does he want?
Robert Ryan plays the villain, the leader of the gang, so to speak. Lee Marvin plays a tough gunslinger. Ernest Borgnine plays a bully who gets the tar kicked out of him in a barroom fight--well, the place is like a saloon, only there's a soda fountain/café counter & no swinging doors.
There's a one-cell jail in which the alcoholic sheriff can be found sleeping it off. There a telegraph station at the train station where telegrams might or might not be sent. Walter Brennan co-stars as the obligatory town "Doc" a washed-up man ashamed of himself. So much like an old-style western is this slightly "noir" film from 1954 that at some point I actuallly expected to see Gabby Hayes come running up to gum a line or two. There's a gal (Anne Francis) looking as neat & cute as Dale Evans in her prime, but she doesn't amount to much. This is a guy kind of flick, a faux western in which manhood is tested, in which men find out what they're made of, in which the good guys win & the old movieland code is rigorously upheld.
Some of the scenes were probably shot out in Simi Vallley where they used to shoot the old Tom Mix & Johnny Mack Brown westerns with large granite boulders adorning dirt trails. You can almost hear the horses galllop & see the chips fly off the boulders as the bullets sing out. Instead of horses however there are Ford coupes & a Jeep. The gunfight scene at night has Robert Ryan rifling down at Tracy using the headlights of his car to see, while Tracy is without firearms, but of course not without resources.
The plot concerns a certain Japanese man who had a homestead farm out among the boulders who ended up missing after his farm was burned to the ground. Seems that Robert Ryan's character doesn't like the Nipponese & is still fighting the war in his mind. Somehow even before it is revealed we know how Tracy lost his arm, but we don't exactly know why he's here. I won't reveal that for those who haven't seen this, but you might guess. He served in the infantry in Italy. Robert Ryan for mysterious reasons was not alllowed to enlist--he says.
Aside from the nicely developed & held tension & the beautiful score by Andre Previn, the effectiveness of this movie lies in the interesting performances by the talented cast. One of the first Cinemascope movies, Bad Day at Black Rock (great title!) is also wondrously filmed so that the empty feel of the desert & loneliness of the isolated town surrounded by stark mountains & a high blue sky will stay with you long after you see the old style "The End" as the film fades to black for the last time.
See this for Spencer Tracy, one of Hollywood's greatest, a little past his prime in a long & distinguished career.
For me, Robert Ryan steals the film. His performance oozes a guilt which he strives to justify with speech after speech of nauseating jingoism. He proves true the phrase: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel'.
Borgnine & Marvin play standard goons but with a genuine gusto.
Even the lesser rôles are filled with character. Note Tracy's drab but hilarious conversation with the unnamed canteen owner: 'We got chilli with beans & chilli without beans'...'Hmm. What if you don't like chilli?'...'Well, that's what they made ketchup for.' Pure poetry. Shakespeare couldn't better that.
Great stuff.
Below are some of the current bestsellers - click them for a price comparison and find the cheapest place to buy!
