OVP: Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Film: Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Stars: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin
Director: John Sturges
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Director, Actor-Spencer Tracy, Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

We are continuing on our look at the Best Actor field this week with a trip somewhere between Babes in Arms and Saturday Night Fever, to the mid-1950's.  The Academy Awards generally gets a crush on an actor and then it dissipates.  Even with legends like Olivia de Havilland or Barbara Stanwyck who continued working for decades, their nominations usually happened within a ten-year time frame.  But there are a couple of actors who just kept getting nominated for decades, and one of those performers was Spencer Tracy.  Tracy, one of the biggest stars on the MGM lot during the 1940's, kept getting prestige projects right up until his death (he was nominated for his final film role in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner).  When an actor does something like this, there are the legendary performances (Boys Town, Woman of the Year, Guess Who's...) and then there are nominations where it feels like they probably just skated into the nominations field, and that's what I've always considered Bad Day at Black Rock, arguably the least discussed of Tracy's nominations today (this despite it being nominated in three pretty big-tier categories at the time).  Today, though, it will take center stage as we look at Tracy's fifth Oscar nomination.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is really short (it's only 81 minutes long, which is weird for a Best Actor nominee post, say, the early 1930's).  It is about John Macready (Tracy), who has just come back from World War II in 1945 in a western desert town called Black Rock.  They make a point of acknowledging that the train has not stopped there in four years, and thus his entry into the town is surprising.  The town is very reluctant to welcome him, and are actively hostile despite him seeming pretty innocuous at first.  Of particular note is Smith (Ryan), who openly wants to kill Macready once he realizes that Macready is there to give the father of one of his fellow soldiers, a man named Komoko (a Japanese-American) a medal since Komoko's son saved Macready's life.  The only people who attempt to help Macready are Doc (Brennan) and a beautiful young girl named Liz (Francis), who quickly regrets the decision.

The film does a pretty good job of addressing the hatred that was inflicted on Japanese-Americans after the bombing in Pearl Harbor.  As the film continues, we learn that Komoko was burned in his house by Smith, who leased him a piece of land he knew to be barren...only to have Komoko find water on it & thus be able to farm it.  They murder him for his success, first by burning down his house (with him inside), and then shooting him when he escapes.  Smith has so many accomplices that inevitably one will crack, but Macready manages to stop him before he kills too many of them (except Liz), and get the man arrested.

The film isn't bad, though it's not great.  You're not going to hear this complaint from me very often, but the movie is too short.  The animosity that Robert Ryan's character instantly shares toward Tracy's Macready feels weird-like they've spent years expecting to get caught, and are just way too suspicious about a dormant murder.  It also doesn't allow us to really differentiate between a pretty stellar supporting cast (Borgnine, Jagger, Marvin), with only Walter Brennan (as always, playing Water Brennan) seeming to stand out.  I kept thinking weirdly of a rather obscure Hungarian film called 1945, which has a similar idea behind it (a town that has a terrible war crime secret), but it unfolds so much better, and thus proves that Bad Day could be a true classic (see 1945 immediately if you haven't as it's unbelievable).

The film's three nominations therefore are a bit misguided if not unwarranted.  The best of the bunch is Director, as it's taut-this is a movie with no fat, even if it could use some for flavor, but the camerawork is excellent, and I loved the showdown scene & use of the expansive outdoors to give us a sense of isolation.  Tracy's performance is sturdy but dull-if you've read this blog for a while you know that Tracy's not an actor I really enjoy, and this is a good example why-there's nothing other than "silent hero" in his Macready, and compared with an actor who adds so much flavor to his performances like Ryan (or a scene-stealer such as Brennan), I have to assume this was a default nomination even if you enjoy Tracy as a rule.  The script is the least of the three, because it's too short-there's too much exposition to try to make up for the lack of time, and it suffers with so many of the townspeople feeling interchangeable.

OVP: The Poseidon Adventure (1972)

Film: The Poseidon Adventure (1972)
Stars: Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowell, Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson, Arthur O'Connell, Leslie Nielsen
Director: Irwin Allen and Ronald Neame
Oscar History: A stunning 8 nominations and 2 wins, one of them a special award for Visual Effects (Best Supporting Actress-Shelley Winters, Best Original Song-"The Morning After"*, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score-John Williams, Best Sound, Best Costume, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and a special Oscar for Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I have to admit, right off the bat, that I was skeptical going into this movie.  If you search back far enough in this blog, you'll find that I loathe the movie Airport, and that has thus far been my only major disaster film of the 1970's, though the OVP offers up a bevy of additional disaster films that I will be partaking in.  Aside from Maureen Stapleton's underrated performance, there was little to lend Airport to me as a viewer, and while I enjoy a blockbuster as much as the next person, and I love a star-filled cast more than the next person, I was not particularly pleased when The Poseidon Adventure popped out of my Netflix sleeve.

Imagine my surprise, then, that I was absolutely riveted throughout the film .  The film opens with a stock cast of characters, and for all intents and purposes, they really could just be Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Gene Hackman, etc., for it's nearly impossible to remember any actors' name, outside of Shelley Winters' Mrs. Rosen (more on that below).  But this works in blockbusters-you need charisma to sell a large-scale action adventure (casting directors who keep hiring Victoria's Secret models and Shia LaBeouf, take note), and you don't get more charismatic than this cast.  Yes, it would be nice to see an acting roster that includes five Oscar winners do a little more heavy-lifting, but everyone needs a relaxing day in the water and a giant paycheck to go with it.

(SPOILER ALERT THROUGHOUT) The capsizing of the ship is almost certainly the best sequence in the movie, and is actually a nail-biter.  This is the 70's, and so you know you're going to be losing some big name actors right away as opposed to saving them to the bitter end (hardly knew you, Leslie Nielsen and Arthur O'Connell!), so there's genuine suspense to see if everyone's going to make it.  The hanging from the ceiling, and the film's continuing body count, make the film a bit darker than it would be today, and it's unnerving to know this is likely how things would play out-most people waiting for help, most people not making it out alive-it is a capsized ocean liner in the middle of the Atlantic we're talking about here.

One by one, the characters all start to perish, and we get to see some truly spellbinding stunts, with all of the actors roaming through crevices and tunnels around the ship.  Not to harp on modern cinema too much, but the reality is that we know when it's really just an actor or stunt double in front of a green-screen these days.  I know it isn't as cost effective, but occasionally it'd be nice to see special effects the Irwin Allen way-with giant sets, shooting fire and water, and genuine claustrophobia on-screen.  Today, we'd likely be taken out of the ship on a regular basis to see the rescue mission.  By keeping us trapped in the ship the entire film, instead of pulling us out, we get the same sort of desperate relief when the cast sees light pouring out of the ship for the first time.

There's a lot of Oscar nominations to discuss here, so I'll say first that the editing, score, and art direction are all top notch, but in the cases of the Editing and Art Direction (as well as almost every other category), they're competing against The Godfather and Cabaret, so it's tough to see it having a shot at my vote.  Ditto the Costumes and Cinematography, which are just fine, but nothing to write home about, and the Sound is loud, but doesn't strike a strong balance with the surroundings often enough, relying too heavily on the iconic score (written by my favorite John Williams, and probably the best shot it has at an Oscar win from my ballot, since Nino Rota's score is ineligible, though if I'm being honest, I probably prefer John Addison's work in Sleuth).  And though it wasn't a competitive category at the time, it's hard to see any film beating it for Visual Effects.

But you want to hear about the two highest profile of the nominations of the film, Best Original Song, it's only competitive win, and Shelley Winters final Oscar nomination in the category that adored her, Best Supporting Actress.  Maureen McGovern's lilting ballad certainly works in the film, though it's odd that after being performed by Carol Lynley, it isn't really referred back to throughout the score.  While most people of my generation are probably best familiar with the song from South Park, it works in the context of the film, and in a very weak year (in which I haven't seen a single one of the other nominees, but judging on reputation it's going to be an unfortunate weekend), it's got a head start as the "right" choice.

Shelley Winters is, I will say, the best of the cast.  Borgnine and Hackman, while both strong leading men, seem to have too much ego with not enough backstory to show why, and Red Buttons seems wildly out-of-place and way too old to be dating Carol Lynley.  I would have liked to have seen Roddy McDowell more, but mostly because I find McDowell wildly underused as an actor and I revel every time I see his handsome face.  Winters alternates from some lovely work-a very realistic, if overbearing, scene in the dining car highlights that sort of abrasive sweetness that is Winters' wheelhouse (see also A Place in the Sun), but she also flails badly when she decides that she needs to start ACTING, particularly when she has resigned herself to death 2-3 times in the movie.  This is oddly my first Best Supporting Actress performance of 1972, so we shall see where this takes us, but I've got to admit that I like Susan Tyrell's and Eileen Heckart's odds a bit more after seeing this movie.

What about you?  Do you have a favorite 1970's disaster film (after this I can't wait to investigate The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, and The Swarm!)?  Who was best in show?  How many of The Poseidon Adventure's nominations should have resulted in wins?  And was Shelley Winters robbed by Eileen Heckart in her quest for a third Oscar?