A mysterious stranger arrives by train in a small, isolated desert town. There’s been an injustice committed, a dark secret, and the stranger seems determined to know what it is. This plot could have fit a movie set in the middle 19th Century, but
Bad Day at Black Rock is set just after World War II. In bright color and widescreen Cinemascope. This modern day Noirish Western stars Spencer Tracy as a one-armed war veteran who is looking for a Japanese-American man in the area who has seemingly disappeared. The townspeople, including Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Dean Jagger, and Anne Francis, can’t give a straight story about the man or his whereabouts. A good, tense movie from John Sturges (
The Great Escape, Gunfight at the OK Corral) with that grade-A cast.
Bad Day at Black Rock had only four votes but two of them were top tens in a fourth and a seventh place nod, plus a pair of thirteens.
Sam Peckinpah becomes the first director with three titles on the countdown (joining
The Ballad of Cable Hogue #83 and
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia #74) with his take on this infamous real-life Western pair. Billy the Kid has been the subject of over a dozen features and counting, portrayed by actors as diverse as Jack Crabbe, Robert Taylor, Paul Newman, Michael J. Pollard, Val Kilmer, Emilio Estevez, and Dane DeHaan. For his William H. Bonny Peckinpah tapped singer/songwriter Kris Kristofferson in only his second movie, following Paul Mazursky’s comedy
Blume in Love, and for his friend turned hunter it is the great James Coburn as Garrett. The order of the names in the title is no accident as this film focuses more on Pat Garrett and his internal struggle than on the exploits of The Kid. The film is absolutely packed with character actors from generations of Westerns in the supporting roles including Chill Wills, Jack Elam, Slim Pickens, Katy Jurado, Jason Robards, Gene Evans, Richard Jaeckel, R.G. Armstrong, L.Q. Jones, Dub Taylor, Elisha Cooke Jr., Emilio Fernández, Luke Askew, Barry Sullivan, Charles Martin Smith, and Harry Dean Stanton. The film also famously cast two other musicians, Rita Coolidge (Kristofferson’s then real-life wife) and Bob Dylan in his film debut. Dylan also provided the music and score including “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” which in pop culture terms has really outsized the movie it was written for.
Peckinpah intended this to be his farewell to the genre, released the year before
Alfredo Garcia, but fights with the producers and the studio led to the director being removed from the final editing process. His cut had come in at 124 minutes but eighteen minutes were cut for its 1973 theatrical release. It was restored to Peckinpah’s vision for a LaserDisc release in 1988, four years after Sam’s death, which began a critical and fan reevaluation of
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. While still a divisive point in his filmography its champions here at MoFo have landed it at #67 with seven votes including two top tens; a fourth and a tenth placer.