Bad Day at Black Rock

It's 1945, a couple of weeks after the official end of the war. For the first time in four years, the streamliner stops in the small American western desert town of Black Rock, and off the train steps John J. Macreedy: a suit-wearing middle-aged man with a lame left arm who has never been to Black Rock. Without even knowing who he is or what his story might be, the townsfolk are suspicious of Macreedy. They learn that he is only in town for 24 hours until the streamliner picks him up the next day to take him to Los Angeles to "restart" his life; he's in Black Rock to speak to a Japanese-American farmer named Kamoko who supposedly lives in Adobe Flat, but nobody in town is willing to help him locate the man. As Macreedy searches for Kamoko, he realizes that Reno Smith is the town's leader in whatever they are hiding. Everyone else in town is either in cahoots with Smith or unwilling to help for fear of reprisal from Smith and his associates. Those unwilling to help include such influential people as the town's sheriff, the switchboard operator, and the telegraph operator. As those in cahoots with Smith try to provoke Macreedy, he also realizes that they are looking for a reason to kill him and without help he'll be dead before morning as he has no access to a vehicle or means of communication with the outside world. When he finds out the secret the town is keeping, Macreedy does whatever he must to save his life and in the process save the town from the scourge that has hung over it for four years.