similarities to "Heat of the Night"
I really liked Bad Day... Apart from the very honest portrayals, direct cinematography and nice exploration of small town moralities with a pleasing pay-off (baddies get it in the end), I can't help noticing a very superficial but interesting similarity with Sidney Poitier and "In the Heat of the Night".
i.e. an individual arrives and leaves by train, encapsulating the drama with a well defined circular start and end point. In each case the unsuspecting individual arrives from the haven of a comfortable and safe extension of civilization (the train) into a nightmarish world of repression where much of the local population are out to get him. The individual manages to transform the lives of some of those he encounters, and in the end triumphs, solves the crime, redeems or incarcerates the locals, and gets back on the train to carry on his normal life (of which we don't really get much of an insight).