FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Steineded How sad is this?

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

antoniocasaca123 A good Western-Thriller by the great director John Sturges, with a courageous message, especially at the time of the film: the silence and conformism of the people, in a skillful and subtle criticism to the times of "McCarthyism" that lived at the time of the film. There are quite a few similarities to "High Noon", made three years earlier. Spencer Tracy has an excellent performance (nominated for Oscar) as well as the remaining actors in the cast (Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, among others). The only weakness is some movie sequences that are quite unlikely. Still, a movie that delivers great entertainment and a beautiful message.

mgtbltp Film Soleil, those sun baked, filled with light, desert/tropical Noir/Neo Noirs."Change the darkened street to a dry, sun-beaten road. Convert the dark alley to a highway mercilessly cutting through a parched, sagebrush-filled desert. Give the woman cowboy boots and stick her in a speeding car, driven by a deranged man whose own biological drives lead him less often to sex than to fights over money. Institute these changes (to film noir) and you have film soleil." - DK HolmIn the city it's usually what you can't see that can kill you. In the desert everything you see can kill you.Desert, the anti-city. Wide open spaces, exposed, agoraphobia. A stream-liner is snaking. A steel sidewinder.Black Rock. Nowheresville. A Death Valley desert fly speck. Whistle stop. Somewhere on the California/Nevada border. The Southern Pacific RR. A dirt road main street. A baker's dozen collection of dilapidated buildings. The station. The beanery, Sam's Bar & Grill. A General Store abutting a barber shop. A two story hotel. A sawbones/morticians, a gas station, two residences and a rinky-dink hoosegow.It must be Saturday. Hicksville. Everybody's in town. Cowboy porch lizards. Relaxin'. Shootin' the breeze. Waiting' for the Streamliner to blow through. She's Greased lightning. Like clockwork. The day's big excitement. A faint rumble. The train's a coming'. You can hear the drone of the F7's down the valley. The pitch changes. The horn blares. Station agent excited. She's stopping. A train hasn't stopped here in four years. What's up. Lizards all rubbernecking.A man gets off. Looks like a city slicker. Suit, tie, fedora, suitcase. A Stranger. Ex career vet. A one hand man, Macreedy (Tracy).Adobe Flat! The name raises bristles. He's looking' fer Komoko. It stirs the hornet's nest. The lizards get standoff-ish. Hostile. Downright cantankerous. The crap hits the fan. Oh Komoko he left town they tell him, sent to an internment camp.They telephone the biggest toad in their pond Reno Smith (Ryan). But the cat's already out of the bag. Something is wrong, slantindicular, cattywampus. Macreedy knows they're lying. But he doesn't know why.Cowboy Coley (Borgnine) is glassing Macreedy from a boulder patch. He ambushes him on the way back to town. Tries to run him off the road. Back in town Coley is still trying to provoke, trying to raise sand. Spencer Tracy goes from stoically laconic to determinedly obsessed as the odds and the towns alienation build against him. Robert Ryan's unfriendly persuasion streaks more vicious as the truth is slowly exposed. Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin are the two town bullies both are a few cards short of a full deck. Dean Jagger the town lawman and Walter Brennan a sawbones/mortician are the town drunks. John Ericson is a fidgety hotel keeper and Anne Francis servers as the film's nominal femme fatale.The film juxtaposes the high desert grit of a weathered bleached bones town against a backdrop of astonishing but desolate beauty. The film has a fascinating Edward Hopperesque realism look to it. This was MGM's first release in Cinemascope. 10/10

pavelb-968-44685 The picture has all the necessary characteristics to be really good, but it misses the mark with too many glaring errors. First, the lead is wrong - Tracy is simply too old. Then there's the unnecessary character Anne Francis - not required at all. Robert Ryan never develops into any kind of pithy villain - his lines are shallow and not in keeping with someone who thinks himself "in charge". If Tracy wouldn't have had to do a "Yoda" on the big bad guy (the best character in the picture) Ernie Borgnine, the plot would have been almost believable. As it was presented, the characters weren't real enough in this "town" where everyone just sits around waiting for someone to come along and discover their secret. Dean Jagger was pretty good and even Brennan but they needed to be deeper in their inferiority. Lee Marvin is very good and should have been given a few more scenes. Secondly, the script was written as if it were telling a story 70 years earlier. Perhaps it could have been written as a Spaghetti Western - at least the music would have been memorable. This could have been a much better picture considering it deals with a subject rarely, if ever, discussed... that horrible post-war period when old scores are settled after the conflict is over, rightly or wrongly. This picture begs be remade with a much better script showing the subtle twists and intrigue of 60+ years hindsight. Mortensen as lead?

Claudio Carvalho When the streamliner stops at Black Rock for the first time in four years, the mysterious one-armed stranger John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) disembarks and asks how to reach Adobe Flat to meet the Japanese- American farmer Kamoko. He is not allowed to check-in the hotel and he is not able to rent a car. Soon he notes that the sheriff is a drunkard and the resident Reno Smith (Robert Ryan) rules the place with his henchmen Hector David (Lee Marvin) and Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine). Further he feels that the inhabitants are hiding something. When he finally succeeds to rent a jeep from Liz Wirth (Anne Francis), he drives to Adobe Flat and finds the farmhouse burned to the ground. He immediately concludes what might have happened to Kamoko and tries to communicate with the state police, but he discovers that communication is controlled by Smith. Further, the veterinarian Doc Velie (Walter Brennan) tells that his life is in danger and unsuccessfully tries to help him to escape. Who is John J. Macreedy and what will happen to him?"Bad Day at Black Rock" is a tense thriller with great screenplay, direction and performances. The secrets about the behavior of the inhabitants and who Macreedy is holds the attention and makes also the viewer nervous. The trio of villains is perfect with Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Conspiração do Silêncio" ("Conspiracy of the Silence")