Bad Day at Black Rock

In the years just after the Second World War, a one-armed veteran named John J. Macreedy arrives by train at Black Rock, a small town in the American desert Southwest. He is looking for a Japanese-American farmer, the father of a man who saved his life during the war. The townspeople are strangely hostile and evasive, and the few residents he questions offer no answers. It becomes clear that they are hiding something, and the more Macreedy asks, the more openly threatening the town becomes, until he is attacked.

John Sturges directed the film from a screenplay by Millard Kaufman, with Dore Schary producing. It is the second of the eighteen features Sturges directed, following Thunderbolt and preceding Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Spencer Tracy plays Macreedy, and Robert Ryan, Walter Brennan, Lee Marvin, Dean Jagger and Anne Francis appear among the townspeople. Made for about one million dollars, the film returned roughly four million worldwide.

On IMDb it holds 7.7 out of 10 from more than twenty-three thousand votes, and on TMDB 7.3 out of 10 from several hundred votes. A critics' rating of 8.2 out of 10, drawn from thirty-five reviews, places it above the audience scores. The film runs eighty-one minutes and mixes crime, drama, mystery and western elements.