Bad Day at Black Rock is an intriguing blend of film noir and neo-western featuring one of the greatest ensemble casts I’ve ever seen – led by the great Spencer Tracy. Throughout his storied Hollywood career, Tracy shared the screen with many legendary actors. In his feature film debut, Up the River, he co-starred with Humphrey Bogart. In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, he co-starred with Sidney Poitier and his real-life spouse Katharine Hepburn. In Judgment at Nuremberg, he co-starred with Burt Lancaster, Maximilian Schell, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, William Shatner, and Montgomery Clift.

Tracy appeared in the all-star ensemble of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and he narrated one of the most star-studded westerns ever made, How the West Was Won. But arguably the most stacked cast that Tracy appeared in was the star-studded ensemble of Bad Day at Black Rock. Tracy earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and won the Best Actor Award at Cannes Film Festival for his role in Bad Day at Black Rock. He’s the undeniable star of the movie, but he’s surrounded by iconic supporting players.

Bad Day At Black Rock’s Cast Has Multiple Stars & Oscar Winners

Spencer Tracy is joined by an all-star line-up of supporting players

Tracy’s Bad Day at Black Rock co-stars included two fellow Oscar winners and two future Oscar winners. Tracy had become the first actor to win two Oscars back-to-back with his roles in the 1937 adventure drama Captains Courageous and the 1938 biopic Boys Town. Walter Brennan had won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor three times – for 1936’s Come and Get It, 1938’s Kentucky, and 1940’s The Westerner – making him one of just three male actors to win three Oscars. Dean Jagger had won Best Supporting Actor for his turn in the 1949 war film Twelve O’Clock High.

Ernest Borgnine and the badass Lee Marvin won Oscars later; Borgnine won Best Actor for Marty, released the same year as Bad Day at Black Rock, and Marvin won Best Actor for his dual roles in the 1965 western comedy Cat Ballou. Robert Ryan was also an Oscar nominee, having received a Best Supporting Actor nod for his role in the 1947 film noir Crossfire. The cast also features Anne Francis, the renowned star of Honey West and Forbidden Planet. Suffice to say, it’s a very impressive cast – it’s like the Expendables of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

What Is Bad Day At Black Rock About?

The search for Komoko is underway

Bad Day at Black Rock takes place in an isolated town in the Californian desert in late 1945. It opens with Tracy’s John J. Macreedy, a jaded veteran who lost one of his arms in the war, getting off the train in Black Rock. The residents are immediately suspicious of Macreedy and treat him with hostility, because this is the first time that the train has stopped in the town in four years. Macreedy is looking for a friend named Komoko. The telegraph agent refuses to get Macreedy a cab and the hotelier refuses to give him a room.

At every turn, Macreedy is met with aggression and resentment, but he doesn’t let that stop him. He keeps fighting back until he gets to the bottom of what really happened to Komoko. As he continues to search for his friend, Macreedy uncovers a dark secret that has shaken the entire town. The screenplay was adapted from Howard Breslin’s short story “Bad Time at Honda,” which was published in The American Magazine in January 1947. The story became so iconic that it was borrowed by a handful of TV crime dramas at the time.

Why Bad Day At Black Rock Is A Great Western Movie

The mystery storyline keeps the audience guessing

Although it’s a crime drama set in 1945, Bad Day at Black Rock is widely recognized as a western. It’s considered to be one of the earliest entries in the revisionist western subgenre, because it tackles the revisionist western themes of racism, patriotism, and misplaced loyalty. It has the story of a classic film noir – an intriguing mystery narrative that leads the protagonist into a sinister conspiracy propped up by a complicated web of lies – but it has the setting of a western.

William C. Mellor’s cinematography captures stunning images of desert landscapes in the film’s widescreen Cinemascope format. Every exterior shot has a breathtaking mountain range in the background. The widescreen photography emphasizes the disorienting isolation of this small desert town. Narratively, Bad Day at Black Rock is a film noir. But visually and thematically, it’s a classic western.