Dennis Bell This is 95% of a pretty fascinating film. Basically a heist picture, it's also a message movie: Let's all get along as brother armed robbers under the skin. The lead-up to the crime is full of great, realistic, everyday glimpses into the lives of two losers, played by Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte. The melodrama is held beautifully in check by director Robert Wise, who gets wonderful performances out of everybody in the supporting cast, especially Ed Begley and Gloria Grahame, the latter of whom was still a complete knockout at age 35. It's the message part that trips up the picture during the last few minutes, as Ryan and Belafonte get to wrangling racially when in more plausible circumstances they'd be running like rabbits in opposite directions.

dartleyk brilliant shooting by wise, great low-key winters, truly searing robert ryan who carries the movie, intense offbeat begley, unfortunately bogged down by belafonte- pop singer who is a stick on screen; of course the main point is race relations, and that's the part you wind up feeling as a preachy intrusion that almost cripples a stunning film noir crime drama heist rivaling some of the best like rififi; didn't need the help but john lewis score also tops , though also didn't need the minor showcase of belafonte doing his bit in a nightclub, but his company put up the money so he got some cameos; if you have the time to read up, wise shot standard aspect ratio, used infra-red film in some scenes; interesting that variety had it right, and tactfully, after the opening: " "On one level, Odds against Tomorrow is a taut crime melodrama. On another, it is an allegory about racism, greed and man's propensity for self-destruction. Not altogether successful in the second category, it still succeeds on its first." yup

LeonLouisRicci 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.

kenjha 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.