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.
