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everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Captivating movie !

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

After World War II, Hollywood began making movies portraying those who were not Caucasian in a more positive light, showing them to be not only morally and mentally equal to white people, but in many cases more virtuous or intelligent than whites as well. Some of these movies were quite good, while others were of inferior quality. Of all these movies, "Odds Against Tomorrow" was the most ham-handed, presenting a case against racism so simplistic that it is only suitable for Sunday School, provided the children in that Sunday School class have not yet reached the sixth grade.There are two main characters: Johnny Ingram, who is black, and Earle Slater, who is white. Over and over, throughout this movie, we are shown how Johnny is good and Earle is bad. Therefore, white people are not superior to black people. Therefore, racism is wrong.Using Robert Ryan to play Earle gives the movie a head start in making its point, inasmuch as Ryan had often played unlikable characters, and had played a bigot in both "Crossfire" (1947) and "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955). In the opening scene, a group of children are playing, and a little black girl accidentally runs into Earle. He picks her up and calls her a pickaninny. He continues to use derogatory racist terms disparaging African-Americans during the rest of the movie. Then he goes into a hotel. He is rude to the clerk, who is white, and is even ruder to the elevator operator, who is black, refusing to respond to his attempts at casual conversation. When he gets to the room he is going to, ex-cop Dave Burke offers Earle a chance to be part of a bank robbery. During the conversation, we find out that Earle has an explosive temper, which goes with the fact that he has served two stretches in prison, one for assault with a deadly weapon and one for manslaughter, which he later says he enjoyed.After he leaves, Johnny arrives. Johnny is played by Harry Belafonte. His light skin and Caucasian features were probably supposed to make it easy for the white audience to set aside any prejudices they might have. Johnny is really nice to those same children Earle saw earlier, and he is nice to the elevator operator, and he is nice to Dave Burke. Gosh, he's nice. During their easy-going, polite conversation, it turns out that Johnny is basically law-abiding, but he plays the horses and is in debt to a loan shark. And he is reluctant to take the job robbing the bank, but eventually agrees to because he needs the money. Earle is reluctant to take the job too, mainly because he finds out he would be working with a black man.Johnny is a divorced man who supports his wife with alimony. He is still in love with her. Earle is supported by Lorry, a woman he is shacked up with. He cheats on her.Johnny is a wonderful father to his daughter, and is happy to babysit her when his wife needs him to. When Lorry asks Earle to babysit the neighbor's child, he becomes angry and rude, and he refuses to do it.In addition to Johnny's being a better person than Earle regarding their moral qualities, Johnny is also smarter, of course. When there is a snag in the plan to rob the bank, Johnny is the one who figures out a solution.Just before the holdup, the three men separately kill time, waiting for nightfall. Johnny is sitting by a river when suddenly he sees what appears to be a white baby floating in the water. He is alarmed and runs over to get a closer look. It is just a doll. Johnny is relieved.While Earle is sitting in his car, he sees a cute little bunny rabbit. He smiles as he gets out his shotgun. When the rabbit tries to run away, Earle shoots it.The only thing that makes this Sunday School lesson tolerable is that it is built around a bank heist, which eventually takes place, but it all goes bad. When Dave gets shot several times by the police, Johnny is unhappy, and he tries to save Dave. When Dave shoots himself in the head, Earle is happy, because now Dave won't be able to talk.In the end, Earle and Johnny end up killing each other, blowing up a bunch of tanks with flammable liquid in the process, leaving only their charred bodies behind. The police are unable to tell which one is which. You see, all men are basically equal, especially when they are dead.

This is a pretty good thriller created by the great Robert Wise, featuring excellent performances from Harry Belafonte and the great Robert Ryan.A comment on the state of race relations in America at the time, Ryan plays an ex-con bought in to do a bank job with debt-ridden jazz musician Belafonte. Ryan's Earle Slater is the clichéd backward southern racist, whilst Belafonte's Johnny Ingram is a sophisticated northern African American. The movie plays out the tensions between the two, concluding in a downbeat ending. The score by MJQ pianist John Lewis is excellent, and Wise's use of locations and studio shots gives the film an independent film making feel to it.Watching the film I could see the potential influence on later film makers such as Scorcese and De Palma on their heist/gangster movies, but more specifically I felt an influence on the early work of Tarantino. An excellent little film that is high on my list of Wise's best work.

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.

While many have stated that Orson Welles's Touch of Evil is the final film noir, or first neo-noir, the same can be said for this film. A true hidden gem that was directed by the vastly underrated, and versatile, Robert Wise. The black and white images are actually punctuated by the two main characters, Robert Ryan (excellant!) and Harry Bellafonte (excellant as well!). As this film can border the old school noir, it also walks the thin line of the neo-noir. Race is a very intrigual part of this film and though themes of it were evident in Touch of Evil, here it is in your face like the afternoon school bully. Ryan, as much of a professional as he is, can not seem to get over the fact that one of his partners in his latest job is a black man. Bellafonte's character is not only a highly recommended professional capable of being Ryan's peer, but he is also dating a white woman! This was also before the subject was put in motion by Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?. But race relations aside, this movie has the typical noir characteristics of: black and white cinematography, crime, criminals knowing that this may be their demise, love that will not last, greed, and double crosses. But like Touch of Evil as well, this makes good use of being a genre defining desert noir that I have commented on before. The final scene is just as literal as James Cagney's farewell in White Heat and on par as the final punctuation as the fore-mentioned film. Seek out on: video, DVD, TV, TiVo, whatever and see how this movie not only ended one genre and started another, but also see how this film could've been considered one of the catalyst films that might've sparked the Civil Rights movement (another thing that Bellafonte was involved in as well; this guy has his hands in every pie).