The Actipn Near the End (SPOILERS)

1955 was a year that was still pretty deep in the Hays Code. People didn't bleed from bullets and brutality could not be "lingered upon." Often, killings were kept off screen entirely.

What's perhaps most noteable in a 1955 movie like "Bad Day At Black Rock" is how while the head villain is shown as a cruel bigot who killed a Japanese-American and kills a young woman near the end ("Why kill me?" "I have to start with somebody!")...he is not killed at the end, just arrested. You KNOW that if Bad Day at Black Rock was made 20 years later(with Eastwood or better yet, Bronson in the Spencer Tracy role , the Ryan character would get beat up real good and probably blown away with bullets.

"Violent Saturday" also from 1955 (and also with Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in supporting roles) is somewhere between the "arrest 'em" end of Bad Day at Black Rock and the "kill 'em" endings of Bronson and Eastwood films.''

First of all, it is a "kill 'em" movie. They are three main bad guys and one fourth bad guy revealed a little later. Hero Victor Mature kills three of the four, and anti-violence Amish farmer Ernest Borgnine finishes off the fourth (his "pal," Lee Marvin) with a pitchfork.

Still, "Violent Saturday" is held to certain 1955 restrictions. No blood from the bullets(or in this case, shotgun shells; Mature kills two of the baddies that way.) No close up (from behind) on the pitchfork going into Marvin's back (though is facial expression when Borgnine does the deed "sells the killing."

And there is something just flat out ridiculous to how Mature kills the fourth baddie -- first -- by kicking a wooden barrel on him from high above that lands just right to kill the guy as he climbs up a ladder to the barn loft where Mature and the Amish are being held prisoner.

On the other hand, Violent Saturday indeed sells the violence as somewhat real and I was reminded of the ending of the 1974 Charles Bronson movie "Mr. Majestyk" in which the finale is low key and low action and Chuck rather takes out the baddies with a rifle with the same low key aplomb that Vic Mature uses here. Cat and mouse, aim carefully -- SHOOT. Kill. Bronson and Mature are playing from the same playbook(though Bronson does a pretty good leap through a window for his final shot.)

Mature has the fourth bad guy's shotgun to use and its interesting to see his shot hit J. Carroll Naish with accuracy and power -- Naish flies up off the grown on impact and is instanteously dead.

Add in how gang leader Stephen McNally(also a shotgun blast) and Marvin(pitchfork) get it and -- well Violent Saturday IS "Mr. Majestyk 1955."

Sort of. Kind of.

Suspenseful enough (one man versus four, with a little Amish help)
Violent enough.

But still..1955 enough.