Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Watch us on Youtube Join the Archive Mailing List Read our Blog

The Seventh Cross (1944);
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
March 18, 2012 - 7:00 pm

The Seventh Cross (1944)

Directed by Fred Zinnemann

An unusual European subject for Tracy, this film tells the story of anti-Fascist George Heisler, who escapes a Nazi Concentration camp and must carefully plot escape from Germany. The role demanded much of Tracy for large sections of the film during which his traumatized character must keep silent while communicating dread and determination to the audience, ultimately finding escape and hope for human nature.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Producer: Pandro S. Berman. Based on the novel by Anna Seghers. Screenwriter: Helen Deutsch. Cinematographer: Karl Freund. Editor: Thomas Richards. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Signe Hasso, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Agnes Moorehead.

35mm, b/w, 113 min.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Directed by John Sturges

In 1945, after World War II, a one-armed mystery man named “Macreedy” (Tracy) steps off a train into a tiny Western town ruled by political boss Robert Ryan…and uncovers a monstrous crime in his search for a local farmer named Komoko. In its depiction of brute power run amok, the film fashions Tracy as a model of moral authority in a postwar America still riddled with racism.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Producer: Dore Schary. Based on a novel by Howard Breslin. Screenwriter: Millard Kaufman. Cinematographer: William C. Mellor. Editor: Newell P. Kimlin. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan.

35mm, color, 81 min.