Review: Odds Against Tomorrow

Disgruntled ex-cop Dave Burke (Ed Begley Sr.) was booted out for refusing to rat on a dirty colleague. Hard up for cash, Dave has come up with a can’t-fail plan to rob a small NY bank. He ropes in loser gambler/jazz musician Johnny (Harry Belafonte) and disturbed, racist war veteran and ex-con Earl (Robert Ryan) to help him carry the job out, but can the two hot-headed polar opposites co-exist long enough to do so? Shelley Winters plays Earl’s nagging, needy spouse (who has been funding and feeding him), with Gloria Grahame their horny neighbour. Will Kuluva plays a local gangster with Richard Bright his effeminate henchman.

 

Sorely underrated 1959 Robert Wise (“The Body Snatcher”, “Born to Kill”, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, “The Haunting”) heist pic with a “Defiant Ones”-esque racial edge is one of the best 50s crime films you’ve likely never heard of. Robert Ryan is perfectly cast as the mentally disturbed, bitter, and openly racist piece of crap roped into pulling a heist with a black man. It’s one of the actor’s best-ever performances. Ed Begley, who played the elderly racist in “12 Angry Men” here plays the bitter ex-cop who sets up the heist and is rock-solid, if given less screen time than his accomplices. For me the real standout here is lead actor Harry Belafonte acting well beyond what one might expect as the debt-ridden, ne’er do well jazz musician whose money problems Begley pounces on to get him to sign up. Belafonte is no Sidney Poitier, but here he has a nice line in seething anger and frustration in a pretty important role for the representation of African-Americans in cinema. Making the film was apparently his idea in the first place, a film some have called the first noir with an African-American lead. Even though he’s a debt-ridden gambler now playing a loser’s game in participating in the heist, you can’t help but feel bad for this guy. All three of these guys are desperate men who aren’t in a good place in their lives, and one suspects early that pulling this heist likely won’t help their lot in life either. Odds against tomorrow? A long shot at best, especially given the combustible mixture of the two men Begley has perhaps unwisely chosen as his accomplices.

 

In support, Shelley Winters steals her every moment as Ryan’s needy, nagging spouse whom he mooches off, and Gloria Grahame adds a touch of levity in one of her better turns as their flirty neighbour. A young Richard Bright has a quite startling small role as a clearly and effeminately gay henchman for gangster Will Kuluva, whilst Kim Hamilton is good as Belafonte’s ex and the mother of his kid. Look out for a young Wayne Rogers making the mistake of picking a fight with a clearly miserable and hateful Robert Ryan. The man just wants to be left the fuck alone.

 

This is a damn good depiction of really desperate, struggling characters making fatal choices, and there’s a real bitterness to the three leads that resonates. Although Belafonte and racist Ryan don’t meat up until near the hour mark, it’s hate at first sight for both (even though both actually share things in common, including an unfortunate self-destructive streak). Watching this lose-lose situation is almost unbearable. Also unbearable – and the film’s only flaw – is the overbearingly insistent and shrill music score by John Lewis (his most significant film credit). It’s annoying as hell.

 

A tense, tough, taciturn film involving a psychologically damaged racist, a desperate loser, and the ex-cop who unwisely brings the former two together on a ‘can’t-win’ heist. If you like hard, tough crime films about losers or even just films about the planning and carrying out of a heist, here’s a near-great and underrated one. The screenplay by Abraham Polonsky (“Body and Soul”, “Madigan”) and Nelson Gidding (“The Helen Morgan Story”, “The Haunting”) has a lot of hard-boiled dialogue and an all-time classic ironic ending about the futility and stupidity of hatred, as well. It’s based on a novel by William P. McGivern.

 

Rating: B+