Bad Day at Black Rock



""Four years ago, something terrible happened here.""

Bad Day at Black Rock is a classic 1955 film starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Walter Brennan, Ernest Borgnine, and Lee Marvin.

From the time one-armed veteran John J. Macreedy steps off the train in Black Rock, he feels a chill from the local residents. The town is only a speck on the map and few if any strangers ever come to the place. Macreedy himself is tight-lipped about the purpose of his trip and he finds that the hotel refuses him a room, the local garage refuses to rent him a car and the sheriff is a useless drunkard. It's apparent that the locals have something to hide but when he finally tells them that he is there to speak to a Japanese-American farmer named Kamako, he touches a nerve so sensitive that he will spend the next 24 hours fighting for his life.

The film was named to the National Film Registry in 2018.

"Macreedy: What did Kamako have to do with Karigador? Smith: He was a Jap, wasn't he?"
 * The Alcoholic: The Sheriff
 * Car Chase
 * City Slicker: Macreedy has shades of this, though he's too smart for them.
 * Corrupt Hick: Reno Smith
 * Diner Brawl
 * The Drifter: Macready actually has a specific reason for coming to Black Rock, but once he is there, everything plays out typically for this trope.
 * Extremely Short Timespan: Bad Day at Black Rock
 * Faux Affably Evil: Reno is nice to Macreedy in the beginning.
 * Frontier Doctor: Doc Velie
 * Gold Fever: The Frontier Doctor tells a story about the prospectors 'round these parts in the old days.
 * Handicapped Badass: John J. Macreedy
 * Heel Face Turn:
 * Improvised Weapon: The fire hose and the Molotov Cocktail
 * Molotov Cocktail: Macreedy makes one during the final fight, using his tie as the fuse.
 * New Old West
 * Obstructive Bureaucrat: The clerk at the hotel tries to tell Macreedy that because of the government compliance and the rooms being held for out-of-town cowboys, he can't rent him a room even though the hotel has plenty of vacancies. Macreedy's having none of that.
 * Private Detective: Nick Gandi
 * Police Are Useless
 * Politically-Incorrect Villain: "Loyal Japanese-Americans, that's a laugh."
 * Retired Badass: Macreedy
 * Revenge by Proxy:


 * The Sheriff
 * Stealth Insult: When he gets to the hotel, one of the cowboys says "You look like you need a hand." It's not lost on Macreedy.
 * Town with a Dark Secret: One of the Trope Codifiers.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Past: For the time it was made, yes.
 * Unspoken Plan Guarantee
 * Vehicular Sabotage: Hector rips the distributor cap and spark plug wires out of Velie's hearse to stop Macreedy leaving town.
 * Western
 * World War II: The film takes place in 1945, right after the war's end, and the secret Macreedy uncovers involves an incident that happened after the Pearl Harbor attack.