Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges, 1955)

1945. World War 2 has ended - but its residue has just arrived in the small town of Black Rock: 

A stranger with one arm (Spencer Tracy), who is looking for someone named Komoko.

What this stranger does not realise is that this name is linked to a secret no one in the town is willing to reveal. 

And there are some who are willing to kill to keep that secret from ever coming out...

Bad Day at Black Rock is as timeless now as it was in 1955. 

Released in the mid-fifties, the film’s paranoia is a reflection of the period’s anti-communist atmosphere. In its focus on the Japanese internment, and the town’s willingness to cover up its guilt, it is a sadly evergreen reflection of the ways in which America refuses to reflect on its past.

The genius of the film is that it manages to balance this social dimension within the framework of a spare action thriller - one that features one of the iconic examples of a disabled action hero.

This movie is so streamlined. From the runtime of 82 mins, to the limited cast and small setting, this movie is tight as a drum.

John Sturges directs the movie in his straightforward, unflashy style, a combination of tight interior compositions and exteriors that show how small the town is.

Our hero arrives and immediately is surrounded. The town is literally a street, shown in a long street as the train arrives.

That mise-en-scene is key. While McReady is often presented at a disadvantage, that vast backdrop of mountains and desert is always there - a reminder that all the characters are living on the edge.

At one point, the film’s villains congregate near the rail tracks, surrounded by desert and mountains - they are at the mercy of forces they can no longer control.

That sense of a frontier also ties the action to the country’s real and cinematic past - this is a western town McReady is like a lone gunslinger coming into town to bring the law.

The setting is so evocative and familiar that if you took away the cars this could be the old west. 

Crossing from the reel to the real, it is hard not to see Komoko, the victim we never see onscreen,as a stand-in for how America's history is framed to exclude anything that contradicts the myth of manifest destiny and white masculinity.  

The only sign of Komoko’s existence is the burnt-out shell of his home. His killers have not just killed him but tried to remove any evidence that he existed.

The casting of Robert Ryan as the villain Reno Smith is one of the film’s master strokes.

A forerunner to Michael Douglas’s embodiment of curdled white masculinity, Ryan built a career of showing the dark side of onscreen American male stars, and was nominated for an Oscar for playing an anti-Semitic murderer in 1947’s Crossfire.

He is the locus of the film’s racial politics: at first he is presented almost as a figure out of a western, from his name to his height and machismo.

But as the g progresses, that presentation is revealed as simply that, a facade.

Despite his patriotic posturing, he never went to the war. And he used the racist atmosphere of the time to kill Komoko. 

Smith is a failure in terms of every standard he sets for himself: strength (he could not enlist because he failed the physical) and self-reliance (it is revealed that Komoko had discovered water on the land he leased from Smith). 

What is striking and transfixing about Ryan in this role is what he manages to avoid - Smith is not a charming villain or a caricature of a Klansman. He is disgustingly human, trying to impose his will on a world and people he cannot control.

It is impossible to watch Robert Ryan and not think of America now. You watch his performance as Smith - the rage, the sense of impotence - and it feels evergreen as an allegory for facism.

Smith only succeeds because he is enabled by the community around him, one that shares his guilt and a desire to hide their collective sins. Even though they could stand against him, no one does anything.

It takes a stranger, someone who represents everything Smith is not, to finally destroy him.

As his nemesis, Spencer Tracy is wonderfully deceptive.

His weary, everyman quality - the source of his success as a movie star - is completely misread. And his missing arm is read as a weakness.

What works about the character is that this impairment does not grant him any superiority in terms of fighting skills. The film is smart enough to present McReedy as a man.

There is a sense of stakes to the whole piece, and that does not dissipate once he has revealed his true colours.

He is vulnerable. He is a confident loner waiting to unleash. He is aware that he is outnumbered, and spends the first half of the movie avoiding violence.

Tracy seems genuinely afraid of Ryan and his crew.

As someone who watches a lot of action movies, what I love about this movie is how much of a slow burn it is.

We have grown so used to action movies which are almost purely a series of action sequences. Bad Day at Black Rock is a product of different kind of storytelling - and a different set of audience expectations.

There is no opening action sequence to establish our hero’s credentials. And there is no series of action sequences which grow more elaborate as the film goes on.

This means when McReedy beats up Ernst Borgnine’s thug in the diner, it is more powerful, a moment of catharsis after all of the trouble the town goons have put this man through.

And after this shocking victory, the odds still do not turn in our hero’s favour. 

The film manages to maintain the tension right up to the final showdown, in which McReedy outsmarts Smith with a MacGyver-style improvisation. It is a testament to the filmmakers that they also manage to cast doubt on whether this last gambit will succeed.

What a picture.

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The Entity (Sidney J. Furie, 1982)

Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey) is a single mother living with her three children.

One night, an invisible attacker assaults Carla in her room. 

Disbelieved by everyone she expects to help her, Carla seeks out a group of university researchers who just might be able to rid her of her supernatural tormentor for good…

I remember seeing the DVD cover for this movie in a store.

The next reference was Martin Scorsese mentioning it as one of the scariest movies he had ever seen.

Released the same year as Poltergeist, The Entity bares a few surface similarities, mostly the idea of a family beset by supernatural goings on in a house.

The differences are significant.

While she has a family, our heroine is the target and victim of the spectre.

And the titular antagonist is not interested in protecting its environment, like the ghosts of the Tobe Hooper movie. It is given no origins, but it’s motive is clear.

It wants to assault the lead character. Nothing more or less. It wants to possess her body. It is just an abuser.

And to the film’s credit, the entity itself is never nailed down, in terms of its genus or as a personality.

The entity remains frightening because of the lack of definition. Even after the introduction of paranormal investigators, the antagonist remains unknowable.

 

That lack of definition is intentional because the film’s real horror comes from the reaction and the aftereffects of the attacks:  

Carla’s home becomes alien, no one believes her, and she feels powerless to protect herself or control her own life.

That sense of powerlessness also feels more structural and societal than supernatural.

As more characters become aware of the entity, the struggle between the scepticism over paranormal events becomes a reflection of the way society minimises sexual assault and mental trauma.

It is also a not-so-subtle critique of the way people treat non-traditional family structures - other characters treat Carla, a single mother, as a failure. This is most overtly rendered when her doctor (Ron Silver) develops a theory involving incest and family abuse, robbing her of any agency.

The film is ultimately about male characters who think they know what is best for Carla and her family. No one listens to or trusts her. It is not for nothing that the most cathartic moment of the film is when Carla finally meets someone who believes her. 

Spelling it out so bluntly makes it sound like the movie is just a metaphor, but a lot of credit has to go to Barbara Hershey.

Her performance is so visceral and dynamic. She tracks this character’s psyche, the sense of terror and rage and sheer frustration.

In a movie with such a high concept, she grounds the film in the reality of this woman’s experience.

Director Sidney J Furie is another important ingredient.

Most well known for The Ipcress File, he later directed the Iron Eagle series and Superman IV for Cannon.

Belaying those above credits, he shows a deft touch here.

Like Ipcress, he utilises a lot of off-kilter angles and bizarre compositions to turn the home into an uncanny space - it is effective, and turns the scenes where Carla is attacked into disorienting experiences.

There is a frenzy to the editing and the compositions that avoids shots of nudity. It all has the feeling of a nightmare.

By refusing to give context or form to the attacker, unsettling any sense of geography, and in keeping the camera focused on Hershey’s face, the filmmaker aligns the viewer with the character - maybe not in her place, but without any sense of remove.

These scenes never come off as exploitative. The camera never lingers on her body, apart from one scene involving the unsettling image of invisible fingers gripping Hershey’s skin.

While the effects are impressive, and it shares some familiar conventions, The Entity never comes across as a straight genre entry. That includes the final jump scare.

After Carrie, it is a trope that a lot of horror movies copy, but it does not play the same way as that final jolt. 

It feels more like a reflection of the character’s trauma. There is no definitive end or cure. It is a battle that must be fought every day. And Hershey’s Carla is strong enough for that fight.

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Thelma (Josh Margolin, 2024)

After she is the victim of a phone scam, 93-year-old Thelma (June Squibb) goes on the trial of the perpetrators.

When I read the premise for this movie, I saw it going in either of two directions: A full-on genre parody or a straight action/vigilante movie.

While aware of the genre it is drawing on, Thelma’s forte is understatement - it grounds itself in the realities of being 93 in the 2020s.

Obstacles are as mundane as tripping on a fallen lamp or slipping while climbing stairs.

The stakes are so small but relatable: She wants to remain independent, and her quest is ultimately about our heroine proving she has control of her life choices.

Richard Roundtree plays Ben, an old friend who has moved into a retirement community. He has accepted his age in a way that Thelma has not.

Roundtree’s recent passing adds an additional poignancy as the characters reckon with ageing and loneliness.

It is a credit to the movie that it never comes off as sentimental or maudlin.

This is an action thriller, first and foremost.

The film’s style does not lean into overt choices.

The editing is fast but does not try to overwhelm the viewer or the tone of the story.

It is a subtle evocation of the action film’s key feature: forward momentum.

Our heroes are on a quest and the film is focused on that mission as they work through every obstacle.

June Squibb is magnificent. She brings an integrity and sense of purpose. She can be ridiculous (one suspense scene is triggered when she thinks she recognises a stranger and then goes through a long list of who this person might be).

While it has fun with the characters’ various physical impairments, the film never feels like it is demeaning its protagonists.

It is a story about people’s fear of losing agency and being seen as unproductive members of society. While Thelma’s fear of irrelevance is foregrounded, her grandson Danny (Fred Hechinger) is tormented by his inability to fit in.

He has no job or qualifications; he does not even have a driver’s licence. He thinks he is worthless. 

By the end of the movie, our heroine has learned to accept what she cannot control and to ask for help.

As someone with a physical disability, it is rare that I feel any great affinity for any characters I see onscreen. This is especially true of action movies.

Thelma was one of the few action movies where I felt a connection and understanding of what the character was going through - Thelma’s lack of balance and fear of falling hit close to home.

And it was not just in terms of the character - the film’s message is ultimately a challenge to the way we value people.

One of the saddest aspects of contemporary life is the way people are valued according to their potential economic productivity.

Thelma rebukes that idea.

It also uses the title character to dismiss the idea of rugged individualism. This is a key theme to American action movies, but one of the delights of Thelma is how the character’s single-minded crusade brings her to the point of disaster.

When she learns to accept help, she is able to finally achieve her goal - and end the film with both her independence, and a community that can support her.

My favourite movie of the year.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.