Spencer Tracy. Melodrama. Social problems. Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. Inherit The Wind. Judgment At Nuremberg. And Bad Day At Black Rock. No one portrayed morality, ethics, and decency like Spencer Tracy. And in those other films, his character was believable. The problem with Bad Day At Black Rock is that it simply is a film that has no clue what it's about, and its hero, John J. Macreedy (Tracy)- a one-armed World War Two vet, is simply too good and powerful, almost to the point of being superhuman. The short (81 minutes) 1955 film, shot in Cinemascope color is a hybrid of the Western modernized, the film noir Westernized, the urban social problem film desertized, the melodrama bowdlerized, the exploitative B film given an A cast, and the psychodrama simplified.
Although well acted, and pretty well directed by journeyman director John Sturges (in terms of the framing of shots, and the disdaining of closeups) and cinematographer William C. Mellor, there is a stiffness and unreality to the film (beyond its unconvincing day for night scenes), and it all starts with the creaky screenplay by Don McGuire, from a story by Howard Breslin. Too often the characters descend into caricatures. In fact, aside from a few scenes between Macreedy and Smith, the rest of the town is all caricatures. And matters are not helped in the least by a terribly telegraphic score from Andre Previn. The film is melodramatic enough without the constant handholding of the over the top music telling a viewer that 'here comes the bad guy,' or 'this is the start of something bad.'
Overall, Bad Day At Black Rock is a solid film, but one that has not dated well. It plays out more like an episode from the original The Twilight Zone television series, with its moral stamped on every frame of film. And, without the granite like presence of Tracy in the lead role, the film could have taken quite a sour turn downward, in terms of quality. That not being the case, though, it is worth a viewing. Just do not try to take it as a serious, modern drama, but an allegory of a faded time, even as that is what the film tries to do with the Old West. Sometimes recapitulation has its charms. Sometimes not. This film is the latter. Fortunately, the film's brevity, the presence of Tracy, to keep the film's narrative from veering off course, and that of the beautiful Anne Francis, to distract the (male) viewer from the utter silliness of her, and the lesser characters in the film, is enough to make Bad Day At Black Rock more enjoyable than it is tedious. Small praise, but better than none.
