Post by Brad Nelson on May 26, 2021 11:57:35 GMT -8
The Criterion Channel is currently featuring a few Robert Ryan movies. Next up is 1959’s Odds Against Tomorrow.
Ryan tends to play a man who is ill-tempered and agitated. He’s no different in this one. An ex-cop, played by Ed Begley, is putting together a heist. He’s been watching a certain bank that stashes large sums of money to meet their customer’s payroll needs. And at the side door on Thursday night, there is always a black man from the deli delivering coffee to the late-night workers who are getting ready for the busy Friday payroll day
It’s not surprise that the heist goes wrong. They usually do. But a fairly tight, character-driven plot eventually devolves into (to my mind) outright silliness. They built something up and then threw it away on a few preposterous plot gadgets.
But it’s still overall a pretty good Noir heist flick. Complicating the smooth running of the heist is that Slater (Robert Ryan) doesn’t like colored people. And for his part, Ingram (Harry Belafonte) thinks the “white world” is out to get him and that there’s just no chance living in a white man’s world. The former we call racism. The latter we call something else lest white liberals can no longer self-medicated in feelings of compassionate superiority by taking on the Liberal White Man’s Burden by affirming how racist all white people are (except themselves, of course).
But the racial element is a small part of it. Mostly this is the story of three guys who are desperate to take one chance at a big score ($50,000 each). They are not professional bank robbers. It’s one-and-out, or so they hope.
Gloria Grahame has an odd and unnecessary role as the babe who lives upstairs from Slater and his gal (played by Shelley Winters). Still, it’s a nice subplot for what it’s worth, if only to paint the picture of what a problematic person that Slater is. By his own admission, his life really only works well when he’s angry.
It might be fair to say that I can sing as well as Harry Belafonte can act. He does okay as the “angry black man” at times. But he’s fairly wooden otherwise. But his adversarial relationship with Slater does work for the overall.
But you know a heist has gone wrong when at the tail end of it they start shooting at each other instead of at the cops. Like I said it got a bit silly at the end. What could have been a tough, gritty, tragic heist film unravels because of some rather amateurish screenwriting. And as much as I might appreciate director Robert Wise for The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Sound of Music, I’ve never been a big fan of his. He churned out the movies. And it often shows. Someone needed to have a better handle on this. But the black-and-white Noir-ish nature of it is superb. I'll give him that. Wonderfully filmed.
Still, if you love heist films, this is at least above the 50 percentile mark. The soundtrack by John Lewis is dynamic — sometimes overbearing — but adds a lot to the film. The opening titles are also superb. There’s a lot to commend this film.
Ryan tends to play a man who is ill-tempered and agitated. He’s no different in this one. An ex-cop, played by Ed Begley, is putting together a heist. He’s been watching a certain bank that stashes large sums of money to meet their customer’s payroll needs. And at the side door on Thursday night, there is always a black man from the deli delivering coffee to the late-night workers who are getting ready for the busy Friday payroll day
It’s not surprise that the heist goes wrong. They usually do. But a fairly tight, character-driven plot eventually devolves into (to my mind) outright silliness. They built something up and then threw it away on a few preposterous plot gadgets.
But it’s still overall a pretty good Noir heist flick. Complicating the smooth running of the heist is that Slater (Robert Ryan) doesn’t like colored people. And for his part, Ingram (Harry Belafonte) thinks the “white world” is out to get him and that there’s just no chance living in a white man’s world. The former we call racism. The latter we call something else lest white liberals can no longer self-medicated in feelings of compassionate superiority by taking on the Liberal White Man’s Burden by affirming how racist all white people are (except themselves, of course).
But the racial element is a small part of it. Mostly this is the story of three guys who are desperate to take one chance at a big score ($50,000 each). They are not professional bank robbers. It’s one-and-out, or so they hope.
Gloria Grahame has an odd and unnecessary role as the babe who lives upstairs from Slater and his gal (played by Shelley Winters). Still, it’s a nice subplot for what it’s worth, if only to paint the picture of what a problematic person that Slater is. By his own admission, his life really only works well when he’s angry.
It might be fair to say that I can sing as well as Harry Belafonte can act. He does okay as the “angry black man” at times. But he’s fairly wooden otherwise. But his adversarial relationship with Slater does work for the overall.
But you know a heist has gone wrong when at the tail end of it they start shooting at each other instead of at the cops. Like I said it got a bit silly at the end. What could have been a tough, gritty, tragic heist film unravels because of some rather amateurish screenwriting. And as much as I might appreciate director Robert Wise for The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Sound of Music, I’ve never been a big fan of his. He churned out the movies. And it often shows. Someone needed to have a better handle on this. But the black-and-white Noir-ish nature of it is superb. I'll give him that. Wonderfully filmed.
Still, if you love heist films, this is at least above the 50 percentile mark. The soundtrack by John Lewis is dynamic — sometimes overbearing — but adds a lot to the film. The opening titles are also superb. There’s a lot to commend this film.