Bad Day at Black Rock

Perhaps I was too tired when I watched Bad Day at Black Rock, for I found it terribly hard to stay awake towards the end of the film. At any rate, I could not see the same qualities in John Sturges's film that his contemporaries could.

A one-armed man, John J. MacReedy, gets off the train in the little western town of Black Rock, where he is immediately met with hostility by every single one of the townspeople he encounters. MacReedy has come to town to look up a Japanese man - for what reason only emerges later in the film - but the Japanese man is nowhere to be found. MacReedy certainly gets no help from the townspeople. On the contrary, they seem set on getting him to take the first train out. MacReedy, however, is indomitable. He soon senses that there is something behind this almost exaggerated unfriendliness, but before he has found out what, his life is in grave danger. Others must also lose their lives for the truth to come out.

Perhaps you have to be American or versed in American history to understand that the film's theme of racism relates to the way Americans treated Japanese immigrants after the war.