Le coup de l'escalier

Odds Against Tomorrow is directed by Robert Wise and adapted to screenplay by Abraham Polonsky and Nelson Gidding from the novel written by William P. McGivern. It stars Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Ed Begley, Shelley Winters and Gloria Grahame. Music is by John Lewis and cinematography by Joseph C. Brun. "Don't beat on that Civil War jazz here Slater. We are all in this together - each man equal. And we're taking care of each other, it's one big play, our one and only chance to grab sticks forever. And I don't wanna hear bout what your Grandpappy thought on the old farm down on old Oklahoma. You got it? " A seething ball of fatalism, pessimism and racism, Odds Against Tomorrow packs a firm handed noir punch. At the core it's a tale of 3 men doing a heist, each man with their own reasons for breaking the law, to tackle what looks to be a simple job. Begley is a bitter ex-cop, Ryan a loser living off of his girlfriend, and Belafonte likes to gamble on the horses, only he's not very good at it and now his financial provider wants cashing in - or there are bigger prices to be paid... All men are evil. Wise is in no hurry here, he builds the characters and inner turmoil of each protagonist for a good portion of the running time. It's a good move. The racial tension is palpable, Earle Slater (Ryan) is a venomous racist, which obviously doesn't go down too well with Johnny Ingram (Belafonte), their scenes together crackle with electric tinged hatred, which in turn gives the whole pic its ism factors. It's bitter stuff, further compounded by the two femmes of the piece, both of whom are attached to Slater. They are not fatale types, but Lorry (Winters) and Helen (Grahame) are sad cases for differing reasons, both adding to the all round sourness of the narrative, with Helen's key scene with Slater containing razor edged scripting. Hello dear! The makers fill out the pic with an array of noir standards, from gay henchmen, facially blemished bystanders and acerbic dialogue, to a whole bunch of scenes and imagery that linger large. Daylight scenes have a threatening hue to them, most often boosted by crafty images such as deflated balloons, a battered doll, a rusty old tin can, a dizzying carousel or even a serene shot of a rabbit caught in the sights of our most hate filled protag. Brun's night photography out in the streets is rich with oppressive and ominous atmosphere, and the interior environments of a cramped apartment (scary stairs outside of course) and a smoky club (hello percussion abuse!) are ripe with a claustrophobic hopelessness befitting the story. And all the time John Lewis lays some sumptuously moody jazz over everything. It all builds to the big finale, the heist and the heart tugs, a welcome to noirville sign going blink blink blinkity blink somewhere in the shadowed city. The message is clear, and every lover of film noir owes Robert Wise a debt of gratitude for overseeing a change of endings from the literary source. Yes, even the director of two of the most popular musicals of all time could beat a black heart. Thank you Bobby. 9/10

Based on William P McGivern's novel of the same name, "Odds Against Tomorrow" is a hard hitting crime drama which tells the story of three men who join forces to carry out a bank heist. They all have powerful reasons for needing the enterprise to be successful but also, they all share a strong tendency to be self destructive. It's these characters and the interactions between them that drive the story along so effectively and also make the movie so compelling to watch. Their intense distrust of each other together with the racial intolerance which sours the relationship of two of the men creates an uneasy atmosphere which is complemented perfectly by Joseph Brun's wonderful photography and John Lewis' excellent score. Disgraced ex-cop Dave Burke (Ed Begley) plans to rob a small bank in upstate New York and recruits bigoted ex-convict Earle Slater (Robert Ryan) and compulsive gambler Johnny Ingram (Harry Belafonte) to assist him. Slater and Ingram both initially decline Burke's offer to be involved in the heist but for different reasons, both men are in desperate circumstances and the prospect of a $50,000 pay out offers them the best (and maybe only) chance they'll have of getting out of their current predicaments. Slater is a war veteran who's been unable to settle back into civilian life and has served a prison sentence for manslaughter. He's also unable to find employment and is supported by his loyal and warm hearted girlfriend Lorry (Shelley Winters). He finds this situation intolerable and harbours a great deal of bitterness and hostility. Slater is also a white racist who reacts badly to the prospect of working with Ingram who is black. Ingram is a talented nightclub singer but his addiction to gambling has left him deeply in debt to a mobster who has threatened to kill him, his ex-wife and his young daughter unless he pays up promptly. Ingram's less than relaxed acceptance of Slater's intolerance doesn't auger well for their ability to work together successfully and despite Burke's best efforts to calm the waters between them, their antipathy to each other remains intense. Predictably it's the distrust between these two men which eventually causes their greatest problem in carrying out the heist as planned and leads almost inevitably to the movie's violent and spectacular climax. The power of Slater's anger and instability is consistently evident in Robert Ryan as he often appears to be just about ready to explode with the sheer intensity of his destructive feelings. Harry Belafonte and Ryan are both impressive in their roles and Ed Begley is also memorable as the enthusiastic mastermind of the job who tries in vain to cajole his two partners into working together like reasonable people. The allegorical nature of the story is strong as it conveys incredibly forcefully just how futile, petty and damaging the men's behaviour is and how it even prevents them from serving their own best interests. The movie's title (which is so appropriate for a film noir) also reinforces this message very effectively.

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) This is simply a great film. It is dated for its handling of racism, but in another sense, it captures the feeling of racial tensions well for its time, at the end of the Eisenhower, look-the-other-way era. Robert Ryan is a wonder of grimacing unhappiness, and his anger is taken out against everyone in different ways. Harry Belafonte gets to sing and play, and does a good job playing an educated "Negro" like the roles Sidney Poitier played in the same era. And there are strong secondary parts played by Ed Begley, Shelley Winters, and Gloria Grahame. In essence, this is a heist film in the vein of the "Asphalt Jungle" in the way it digs into the lives of the members of the team. So we learn that Ryan's character is a vet who never assimilated (and so is a classic noir type), and Belafonte's role is as a gambling parent whose girlfriend (or wife) has pushed him out of the house. They both need money, and success, and robbing a bank is a way out. But more interesting, if somewhat less convincing, is the racial battles between these two. Mostly fought in words, until after the robbery, which of course doesn't go as planned, when everything goes out of control. At the end of the movie, a man asks, looking at the two of them, "Which is which?" And we see the beginning of the basic cultural acceptance of that well known fact that we are all the same under our skin. This was something neither of them accepted, but it was certainly the white man, Ryan, who caused all the trouble. The filming was mostly done in Hudson, New York (renamed Melton for the movie). I've spent a bit of time there, including doing some photography, so it was pretty fun to see the way the movie found the great spots in town--the mile long main street straight as an arrow up the hill from the river, and the short bluffs overlooking the Hudson itself, down by where the train station is. There are scenes on Route 9 (the real one is used here--if you see the terrible movie called Route 9, you'll see they decided to make it in Nevada, but that's another story), and a trip of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge from Catskill to Hudson. It's beautiful, open countryside two hours from New York, and it gives the film a unique quality. Robert Wise, the director, has already had a long and amazing career, starting with his butchery of the last scene of Orson Welles second film (not entirely his fault, being a newbie in the studio), and running through a series of very good features in the 1950s. But he is on the verge of his most famous efforts, and so in a way we might think of him as being at the peak of his ability, since "West Side Story" was just getting planned, and "The Sound of Music" was on its way a few years later. If nothing else, "Odds Against Tomorrow" is a smartly directed film, beautifully photographed. And wise gets his cast of five well known actors to really perform. A great film, from opening credits to the last spectacular blow out scene, with its final sad irony.

I'm admittedly not a big fan of director Robert Wise. Never liked his musicals, only really enjoyed his BORN TO KILL (but that was mostly because of Lawrence Tierney's performance). I do, however, love THE BIG HEAT, which was a Fritz Lang film, but it was based on a novel by William P. McGivern. So was ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW, so I decided to give it a chance. It's a mixed bag. Belafonte's great, so is Robert Ryan. Gloria Grahame shows up briefly and is terrific (odd coincidence: Grahame and Ryan both show up in CROSSFIRE, another racially fueled melodrama). Ed Begley is phenomenal. The real problem is Robert Wise. As usual, he cops out at the end, directing with all the heavy-handedness I love to hate. The ending is more than just Hays Office-friendly, it's so retchingly moralistic that I just couldn't tolerate it. If you see the film, keep in mind this idea when the last two minutes arrive: "Racism is volatile, it leads to explosions!" and "Race is only skin deep!" These are not my opinions, but simply what the filmmaker was trying to communicate. I don't know if it's Polonsky's fault as the screenwriter, because I've read that Wise is the one who chose to scrap the original ending in the novel in favor of this one. And, like I said, it falls flat on its face.

Great movie! This movie was mostly filmed in my home town of Hudson New York and seeing this footage of my home town back in 1959 was a total trip. In the movie they changed the name of the city to Milton but it's really Hudson. Some things remain the same around here as they did back in 1959 but most things really changed a lot!! Anyway this is a great movie and i'm glad I finally found this on DVD! It's a classic! Other movies filmed in Hudson were the movies.. Ironweed and Nobodys Fool that i got to see being filmed here and I tell ya it was great to see some excitement around here for a change. Well thats about it, I think I babbled on enough!

By 1959 the film noir cycle had pretty much run its course. The "classic" period (as it is now referred to) had passed by the early 50s and "B" films were also a thing of the past, phased out by the seemingly endless need for inferior product to be displayed on television screens. "Odds Against Tomorrow" is still a great film, thoroughly ensconced in the tradition but something even a little bit more. From the opening highly stylized credits to the lonely figure of Robert Ryan walking the empty streets of New York we know that we are in store for something unsettling, something special. Each character in the film is tightly drawn with at least some level of complexity and interest. It has been said that it is the Begley performance that holds the film together but each contribution is key to creating the final effect of alienation and desperation that echoes even after the final credits role. Personally I found Belefonte's contribution the most searing. He captures the role of the divorced father to a tee. The scene where he is awakened by his ex-wife after sleeping (ever so slightly) with is daughter is masterful. You can sense the longing in his heart for the nuclear family that once was. But the dream is over. He has tough call to make; he is the essence of film noir. As Sydeny Pollack notes in his summary of the noir protagonist, "You're %$W#%ed!" And he knows it. Even though the Robert Ryan character is a confirmed racist he is still sympathetic, you still feel his desperation. Bad guys in most films today are just that, bad, and there is little attempt to draw the shades of gray in them. Ryan gave a lot of great performance but this nuanced turn even surpasses his earlier work in "Crossfire" where no such ambiguity exists.

******SPOILERS****** Ed Begley is a disgruntled ex-cop with a plan to get himself out of poverty -- steal $50 grand from a hick upstate NY bank. Only problem is that the men he needs to help him do it -- Belafonte as a gambling debt ridden musician and Ryan as a racist veteran -- hate each others' guts. Winters appears as Ryan's hard-working girlfriend (his pride is crippled by his dependence on her) and Grahame as his bored, frousy neighbor. Ryan is particularly good at bringing his character to life -- the scene where he pulls a rifle on a rabbit, seems to let it go when it sits still, and then shoots it as it runs away speaks volumes about his character, as does his generally nervous manner. Only the ending is something of a letdown, as Belafonte and Ryan unconvincingly let their hatred take precedence over even self-preservation, rushing onto the largest objects in sight to battle. The fact that a lot of tension was built up along the way makes this a good movie, but the payoff is not as good as the buildup.

Watch those early city scenes, they foreshadow a cultural shift then underway. The cool jazz score, the hip sports car, the dominant racial theme-- all suggest the approaching urban chic of the Kennedy years, no longer Eisenhower's small-town middle America. Noir enthusiasts peg this film as the last true noir of the era. Certainly there are the icons: Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Ed Begley, and blacklisted scenarist Abraham Polonsky (Force of Evil; Body and Soul). But it's not classic noir.The usual light and shadow give way to a gritty gray look, the calculated result of winter filming. The bleak landscape is heavy with machinery gone to rust, mirroring the desolation of the plotters as they reach for the big score. Given the talent involved, the results are surprisingly uneven. Gloria Grahame's role is intriguingly kinky, but dangles like a loose appendage-- a favor to someone I suppose, her looks fading now as quickly as her skills in a badly performed part. Belafonte too looks the part, a frustrated yuppie, yet he deadpans his way through the crucial robbery sequence. And whose idea was that final 'message" scene . They should be forced to sit through a hammer blow, the same way as that piece of obviousness slugged the audience. Director Wise's lackluster pacing doesn't help either, draining the film of much needed snap and suspense. Nonetheless, the film has the great Robert Ryan in a tailor-made part. Who else could smoulder anger or distance alienation better than this gangly near-forgotten performer. The bar scene alone is worth the viewing. Watch the subtle tics flicker across an anguished face as the rage builds. His despairing Old South confederate remains a scary symbol of decades of Jim Crow, not about to give up without a fight. There's also the telling reaction in Begley's apartment after Belafonte comes up with a clever solution. Ryan looks away, the disgust all over a pained visage-- shouldn't it be he, the white man, who solves tricky brain problems. It's just one more frustration for a man emasculated now by a wife earning a living for the two of them. Blacks and women!-- between them, he's dying inside. And underneath it all is the feeling of "the natural order betrayed", a very contemporary grudge that lives on in the likes of call-in radio. This may not be a very good caper film, nor a very compelling example of film noir. But as a reflection of a society in transition, the powerful sub-texts endure and are well worth a look-see.

This film appeared a little later than the average Film Noir flick, coming out in 1959. However, being just a few years newer isn't a bad thing. In fact, as American sensibilities were changing and racial awareness was now fair game in Hollywood, they combine to produce a terrific film. The real standout star in the film is Robert Ryan. His character is highly reminiscent of the bigoted bully from his earlier film, CROSSFIRE. But, in this case he also has a lot of prison time and a wasted life behind him because he has an enormous chip on his shoulder and is just chock full of rage. This character was very well-written, as the writers really understood the antisocial personality and combined it with a slimy coating of prejudice. This film could most likely not be made the same way today in this era of political correctness and this is a shame as bigotry is best served directly and unflinchingly. Ryan's nemesis throughout much of the film is Harry Belafonte. Although they are both crooks working the same heist, Ryan's hatred of anything black can't help but set the men against each other--especially since Belefonte is both proud and very confrontational. This relationship really results in some amazing chemistry. Other very notable performances come from Shelley Winters as the long-suffering girl who keeps waiting for Ryan to make good and Ed Begley as the mastermind behind the bank job. Combining all this exceptional acting and writing with top-notch direction from Robert Wise, and you've got a real winner!! About the only Noir film that I like more that immediately comes to mind is THE KILLER (1946). Also, this film is highly reminiscent of THE KILLING--another terrific Noir classic.

Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow grinds along to an inevitable conclusion, but offers a great performance by Ed Begley as Dave Burke, an ageing ex con looking to set up one last job. Filmed in black and white in winter in New York (both the city and a small-town upstate venue where the bank is) it has a drabness that permeates the whole film. Robert Ryan plays racist small-timer Earle Slater, who must team up with Johnny Ingram (Harry Belafonte) a jazz singer/vibraphonist who owes gambling debts to mobster Bacco played by Will Kuluva. Shelley Winters plays Slater's girlfriend Lorrie, a lonely woman with a steady job trying to buy his affection. Their relationship is based more on mutual need than love, her for sex and him for the money and company. Begley as Dave Burke must referee between his two cohorts. The racial tension between Slater and Ingram is carried to the extreme, and in the end it is what does in the heist. The subdued jazzy musical score combined with the bleak photography make this one moody movie. While the ending for Begley is pure drama, for Ryan and Belafonte it is too ironic for its own good, a clear example of the so-called message interfering with the plot, or maybe the message was the plot.