Sunday, October 07, 2018

The Heist: Harry Belafonte and Robert Ryan Co-Star in TCM's Film Noir of the Week for Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12 a.m. ET (and 10 a.m. ET Sunday), Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)

By David in TN
Friday, October 5, 2018, 11:10 a.m.

Odds Against Tomorrow stars Harry Belafonte and Robert Ryan as members of a racially mixed gang planning a bank robbery in upstate New York.

Ed Begley is an ex-cop kicked off the force as a crook who recruits Belafonte and Ryan's characters.

Belafonte plays a poor black man who has debts he can't pay. Ryan, a big lefty in real life, plays his favorite type of role--a white bigot. See also Crossfire (1947).

N.S.: Odds Against Tomorrow was yet another triumph in Robert Wise's relentless march through the genres. Wise remains one of the directors most underrated by critics.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Directors who work in a variety of genres- and whose films are consistently popular- tend to be ignored by the critics (not that anyone should care!). Richard Fleischer and Mike Curtiz are similar to Wise in that regard- absurdly under-appreciated!

David In TN said...

Would a bank heist crew have a black guy as the getaway driver?

The only real-life black and white criminal gang I can think of is the Onion Field killers, Gregory Hood (white) and Jimmie Lee Smith (black). They were relative small-timers.

Briefly, as it is a very long story, Hood and Smith perpetrated a series of armed robberies in 1963 Southern California. They were pulled over by two plain clothes cops, whom they abducted and took to the Onion Field. One was shot dead, the other escaped.

After years of legal maneuvering and trials, Hood and Smith were sentenced to "life" in prison. Guess which one was paroled in 1982? Smith.

Hood died in prison in 2012. Smith was in and out of jail the rest of his life as a habitual drug offender, dying in a treatment facility in 2007.

The story was told in Joseph Wambaugh's 1973 book and the 1979 film.

Anonymous said...

The dirt poor negro and the bad racist whitey. Of course. That is how it is all the time, isn't it?

David In TN said...

TCM's Film Noir of the Week at for Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:30 ET (and 10 am ET Sunday)is The Damned Don't Cry (1950), starring Joan Crawford, David Brian, and Steve Cochran.

Film Noir Guide: "A bored housewife (Crawford) leaves her working stiff husband after their son is killed in an accident and moves to the big city in search of more of everything...and becomes Brian's mistress because he promises her the world, and that's all she ever really wanted. Cochran, Brian's rival, also falls hard for Crawford, who plays him for a sucker. It's a complicated but interesting film, and Crawford fans will revel in her tough performance as a small-town girl who chooses a dangerous road to money and social position."

David In TN said...

TCM's Film Noir of the Week is a recycling of Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET and 10 AM ET. Eddie Muller featured this one in 2018 and is showing it again for black history month.