Director John Sturges received his only Academy Award nomination for his work on 1955's Bad Day at Black Rock. Sturges is best-known for his action-suspense movies (Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape); in his hands, the story of Bad Day at Black Rock -- a good-guy stranger comes to town and ends up the object of town hatred -- slowly comes to a boil. The film is similar in its ever-increasing intensity to many westerns, most notably Fred Zinnemann's High Noon. Archetypal good-guy Spencer Tracy is his usual honorable self, though without any of the characteristic whimsy; he was nominated for his fifth Oscar for the role, and was named best actor by the Cannes Film Festival and the New York Film Critics. Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin also deliver distinguished performances as Tracy's antagonistic enemies. Screenwriter Millard Kaufman was nominated for his second Academy Award, the first of which was for his previous effort, Take the High Ground.
