Movie poster for ‘Bad Day At Black Rock’. Courtesy photo

BY KELLY DOLEJSI

Mid-1950s crime thriller “Bad Day At Black Rock” will screen at 6:30 p.m., Thursday at Mesa Public Library.

The moody Spencer Tracy classic opens “Just the Way it Happened!” (according to the tagline) as a railway train pulls into a quiet Arizona town and John J. Macreedy (Tracy) steps off.

Apparently, it’s the first time the train has stopped in Black Rock in a number of years, and the locals are none too happy to have a newcomer. Macreedy can’t get a cab and then is denied a hotel room, although there are clearly plenty of vacancies. He manages to rent a room only to be harassed by a man (Lee Marvin) claiming the room is his.

Macreedy encounters this attitude everywhere he goes. What are the townspeople hiding? What does Macreedy want with a man named Kumoko who was supposedly sent to a Japanese internment camp? The questions in this post-World War II  drama will keep audiences tense and engaged until the end.

The film was Oscar-nominated in 1956 for Best Actor (Tracy), Best Director (John Sturges), and Best Writing, Screenplay (Millard Kaufman).

All screenings the Mesa Public Library Free Film Series are free of charge, thanks to the Friends of Los Alamos County Libraries. The series brings movies to the library’s upstairs meeting-room theater on the first Thursday of nearly every month. As the series continues, check out “Election” Oct. 6, “Born Yesterday” Nov. 3 and “Paper Moon” Dec. 1.

For more information, call the library at 505.662.8240 or check online at https:////www.losalamosnm.us/library/Pages/default.aspx under “Events and Classes.”