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Plot summary
In late 1945, one-armed John J. Macreedy steps off an express train at Black Rock, an isolated desert town in California. It has been four years since the train last stopped there, so the townspeople are suspicious. Macreedy asks about a Japanese-American man named Komoko. Hastings, the telegraph agent, says there are no taxis; hotel clerk Pete Wirth claims no vacant rooms; and Hector David threatens him. Rancher Reno Smith says Komoko was interned during World War II. Sheriff Tim Horn offers no help, and Doc Velie urges Macreedy to leave town.
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Just before filming began, an indecisive Spencer Tracy tried to pull out of Bad Day at Black Rock, and MGM production head Dore Schary made clear he was willing to sue the actor if he quit the film.
- Producers worried that the source story's title, "Bad Time at Honda", was too close to Hondo, a recent John Wayne film; screenwriter Millard Kaufman suggested renaming the town Black Rock, after a real Arizona town.
- Spencer Tracy was 54 and far older than the platoon leader in the original story, but MGM production head Dore Schary wanted him to play the lead role.
- Rea Tajiri's 1991 documentary History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige used footage from Bad Day at Black Rock to illustrate prevailing attitudes toward the Japanese; her family were among those interned after Pearl Harbor.
- Bad Day at Black Rock was shot in Eastmancolor using CinemaScope because MGM production head Dore Schary thought widescreen would emphasise the menace of the isolated town.
- The film is one of the first to recognize discrimination against Japanese during World War II, although it is essentially a crime drama with revisionist Western overtones.
