best movie i've ever seen.

Admirable film.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

In New York, the former cop Dave Burke (Ed Begley) summons the veteran Earle Slater (Robert Ryan) and the jazz musician Johnny Ingram (Harry Belafonte) to heist a bank in a small town. Slater is financially supported by his woman Lorry (Shelley Winters) and feels uncomfortable with the situation. Johnny is a compulsive gambler and owes a large amount to the shark Bacco (Will Kuluva), who is threatening his ex-wife and his daughter. They both are reluctant to accept the invitation, but they need money and accept to participate in Burke's plan. However Slater is racist and does not trust in Johnny."Odds against Tomorrow" is a suspenseful crime drama with the story of the preparation and execution of a heist of a bank. Directed by Robert Wise and with magnificent performance of Robert Ryan, the plot discloses the racism in America in 1959. The racial tension between the characters performed by Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte is increasing reaching the climax in the tragic conclusion. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): Not Available on Blu-Ray or DVD.

It is the Winter of Discontent that surrounds this Film-Noir that many call the "Final Entry" (although this is subjective) in the Genre. The Characters are all in their Last Season before the End. Racial Tensions Contemporaneously were reaching the Terminal Point of No Return. This Movie is a Bleak and Cold Combination of this Profound Predicament and it is a Pulse Ppounding Picture that Compromises very Little.Some say the Ending is Heavy Handed and the Ticking Time Bomb that got Us there was going to End in nothing less than an Explosion. That leads to the Underlying Message that if the Racism wasn't at hand, these Fellow Travelers would have gotten away with it. There is an Awesome Opening Credit Sequence that is a Surreal Display of Patterns and Movement with an underlying Jazz Motif that would Haunt the rest of the Film. A Crisp Look with an Edge that cuts from the City and moves to the Country, this Powerful, Poetic Story is one from the Recesses of the Psyche that takes up Residence in all Losers and People on the Fringe Fighting to Gain some Respect in a World that has None to Offer, so They have to Take it. This is one of the Fifties True Noirs that could be called a Fitting End to a Cycle that will be Adopted by a New Generation of Directors who saw that there certainly would be No End to the Types of People that Inhabited the Noir Universe and the only thing that really was going to Change was the Genre's Title. For the most part the Genre would Include Nothing New but Henceforth would be called Neo-Noir.

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.

A retired cop recruits a racist ex-con and a black musician with gambling debts to rob a bank. This is a bleak drama marked by depressing settings and gray skies. Wise creates a gritty atmosphere but is let down by a script that starts off well but runs out of steam, reaching an unsatisfying conclusion. The screenplay is by Polonsky, who is more famous for being blacklisted than for anything he actually wrote or directed. It is well acted. Belanfonte reached his cinematic peak in 1959, starring in and producing two films. Ryan shows he can play a bigot as well as anybody. Begley is fine as the ex-cop. The jazzy score is apt if overused.