Bad Day at Black Rock

Dir. John Sturges. 1955, 81 mins. 35mm from Park Circus. With Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Dean Jagger, Anne Francis, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, Walter Brennan. Sturges’s lean-and-mean CinemaScope color desert noir features a beguiling Tracy as no-nonsense, one-armed man who arrives in a tiny town in the California desert called Black Rock. This mysterious figure has come to inquire about the disappearance of a local Japanese man named Komoko, and the suspicious Black Rock residents do not welcome this interloper kindly. With its thrilling, clockwork narrative, and a ruthless turn from Ryan as a local with a lot to hide, Bad Day at Black Rock is one of the great two-fisted thrillers of the 1950s. The film’s singular creation of a fabricated town in the middle of nowhere was a major influence on Asteroid City, for which an entire hamlet was built in a vast farmland.

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.