Bad Day at Black Rock

This powerfully tense, fast-paced suspense drama also yields a grim social message about racial prejudice. Spencer Tracy is John J. MacReedy, a one-armed stranger who comes to the tiny town of Black Rock one hot summer day in 1945, the first time the train has stopped there in years. He looks for ...more

Director John Sturges received his only Academy Award nomination for his work on 1955's Bad Day at Black Rock. Sturges is best-known for his action-suspense movies (Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape); in his hands, the story of Bad Day at Black Rock -- a good-guy stranger comes to town and ends up the object of town hatred -- slowly comes to a boil. The film is similar in its ever-increasing intensity to many westerns, most notably Fred Zinnemann's High Noon. ...more