Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) - Directed by Robert Wise

Foreword: I must point out I'm indebted to Tony D'Ambra's review of this film (linked here), as he was the inspiration to see this film in the first place. I can't even hope to add any sort of new idea to the fold, but I do want to emphasize my admiration for both Tony's review and for the film.

In Robert Wise’s fatalistic film, written by blacklisted screenwriter Abraham Polonsky, we see the ugliness and dark side of film noir, not just in a cinematic way, but in a socially destructive way. It stars Harry Belafonte as Johnny, a night club entertainer who’s in debt to the mob due to his gambling addiction, and Robert Ryan as Earle, a racist con-man who is desperate for cash and respect from his wife Lorry, played by Shelley Winters. Ex-cop, Dave, played by Ed Begley recruits both men for a heist job he has been planning (which will set them up nicely for many years) in a small town in the Hudson Valley of New York. He needs both men, but when Earle finds out his partner for the heist will be a black man, he’s completely against it.  Realizing his desperation, though, he decides to reluctantly join the plan. Johnny is not without his racial prejudices either, turning the film into a socially potent film noir. Premonitions of violent gunplay in the presence of kids playing with squirt guns on the street presages the violent climax.

Robert Ryan and Harry Belafonte give brilliant performances as two men who can hardly stand each other, but attempt to set aside their prejudices for the greater good of the heist. As in all heist films, the set-up is terribly important. Shooting in small town, upstate NY, the cinematography by Joseph C. Brun during several sequences in the film is simply stunning of the Hudson River and the mountains in the background. During the actual heist itself, there is a wonderful choreography of sequences that stir up the suspense, as we realize before the robbers do, that something is about to go wrong. There is a deep sense of melancholic fatalism at work in the film. We sense early on that both of these men have ugly personality issues and are doomed. Earle cheats on his wife, has a violent streak, and has a deep sense of self pity that does not flatter him. His racism is the icing on the cake. Johnny is not much better. He’s cheated on his wife, gambles too much, and is no longer living at home. Although he visits his daughter and takes her to the park, he’s distracted by threatening mobsters who want cash. His racism seems more born out of self defense and prior history,  but it’s racism nonetheless. Ed Begley’s Dave is the only one that can keep Johnny and Earle from tearing each other apart.

Wise chose to film in standard aspect ratio, shunning the oncoming neo-noir aesthetic for a more traditional look, while still maintaining an aura of cool. His work on editing Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) seemed to have influenced him quite a bit, as the use of deep focus, low angle and Dutch angle shots are very Welles-ian, but they’re used here to striking, not gaudy effect. Of particular note is the chase around the fuel tanks and pipes at the end, as shadow, harsh light, and odd depth-of-field emphasize the paranoiac dread. Wise’s film is deeply realist in nature, containing neither heroes nor anti-heroes for that matter. It’s simply ugly people playing the ugly game of life and losing.



Wise continues to impress me, with work across multiple genres, something that other American directors, like Sam Fuller and Anthony Mann did. After working on film noirs, westerns, and sci-fi films, Wise made a huge name for himself with the stupendous West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965). What I notice about all his films, is the deep respect for the audience. I know some don't agree with that! I think he gives us what we can believe in. Film noirs like The Set-Up (1949) and Odds Against Tomorrow allow the audience to believe these are real people making fatal decisions. In West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965), despite the cinematic unreality of musicals, Wise captures the sincerity of the characters, which makes us feel that these musical worlds are much like ours, containing people we believe in and admire. If you can make masterpieces in the film noir and musical genres, there’s a real understanding for what makes movies tick.

The Naked Spur (1953) - Directed by Anthony Mann

If the Western genre is considered John Ford’s playground, then it has to be Anthony Mann’s back-alley. Taking the economy of storyline from film noir, and infusing it into the Western, Mann makes the West into a lawless, seedy place, strewn with boulders, snapped pines, rivers raging beyond passage, and no heroes in sight. His collaboration with James Stewart on five Westerns in the 1950’s should rightly place alongside Ford’s partnering with John Wayne as the greatest tag-team duo in the history of Westerns, with Leone-Eastwood taking home a door prize. Compared with Ford’s poignant and often sentimental Westerns, Mann’s films are taut, dark and realistically violent, providing a unique contrast to that most American of genres.

The Naked Spur is probably Mann’s greatest Western, and features the epitome of his style in the genre. We’re introduced to Howard Kemp (James Stewart), who might as well be a “Man with No Name”, tracking a wanted killer, Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan) through the Colorado Rockies. Stewart is a bounty hunter, desperate for the $5,000 reward for some reason we’re not initially made aware of. Mann’s film is coy about his motives, but we realize that Howard is a cold and dark being. He happens across Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell), a gold prospector, whom he pays to help him pick up the trail where he lost it. Soon, they find Ben, and with the aid of disgraced Union Soldier, Lt. Anderson (Ralph Meeker), they are able to catch Ben at the top of a cliff after a brutal struggle to reach the top. When they do, they also find Ben has a woman with him, Lina (Janet Leigh), who is the daughter of a deceased friend. Of course the crux of the psychologically fraught film is that Howard now has two other fellas with him that want to share in the reward they feel they rightly deserve for helping to catch Ben. Ben rightly assumes he has a better chance of getting free if he turns each of the men against each other, by playing on their greedy desires. Furthermore, Ben convinces Lina that she use her sex appeal to get between the men and stir up dissent.

Mann’s film was shot nearly entirely in the high ranges of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, eliminating the wide open spaces of Monument Valley so favored by Ford, replacing them with steep cliffs and boulders, dense forests and forbidding rivers. It seems at every turn, the party is faced with some natural deterrence, further highlighting the psychological obstacles and tensions the team faces by directly paralleling the landscape to the psychology. Stewart also probably spends more time rolling in the dirt in a fist fight than actually on his horse. He’s also shot, rope burned, gets a fever and night terrors, and routinely is disturbed by thoughts of his past. We learn in the middle of the film, that he was betrayed by someone, leading him on this quest for money. It’s the one shred of background information provided to us on his character. There’s little exposition provided, and as I mentioned the economy of storyline is one of the film’s attributes, something that the other Mann Westerns share in common.

Stewart’s Howard presages the revisionist Western characters that would populate the landscape in the coming decades, making protagonists into anti-heroes with deep personal flaws, or just plain cold-blooded killers. Howard Kemp is a desperate and ugly man on a mission. Stewart’s performance is tough and grizzled. There’s definitely a bit of Howard Kemp in The Searchers' (1956) Ethan Edwards. Robert Ryan is also memorably snarky as Ben, one of the best villains in the history of Westerns as he plays games with his captors, turning them against each other. He’s funny, evil and terribly clever in this role. But this is Mann’s show, as his taut and tough directing style perfectly establishes the correct point of view for this story, which penetrates deeply and remains quite fresh today. In fact, although John Ford is probably considered the established voice of the American Western, I wonder whether Mann consistently represents the more realistic portrayals, filled with greed, fear and obsession, lacking in sentiment.

The Set-Up (1949) - Directed by Robert Wise

Boxing movies have become so ubiquitous that I have a theory that the vast majority of people easily watch more boxing movies than they do actual boxing matches and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that at all. From Rocky (1976) to Raging Bull (1980) to Girl Fight (2000)to Cinderella Man (2005)  and beyond, Hollywood seems to release a boxing movie every other year of so, with mixed results. 2010's The Fighter came to great acclaim in some circles, although I didn’t care for it nearly as much as others did. I liked some of the performances, but I found the actual boxing scenes to be lacking a visceral quality and included an annoying commentary from Jim Lampley. At the other end of the spectrum, is Robert Wise’s taut and brutal masterpiece The Set-Up, which is not only a brilliant boxing film but a first-rate film noir, hovering precisely between the genres and ultimately transcending them both.

Robert Ryan, in perhaps the greatest performance of his career, stars as Stoker Thompson, a nearly washed-up boxer, who’s been hovering around mediocrity for what appears to be his entire career. He has always been hoping for that big break but is nearing the end of his career, both through his own age but also through the pressure of his wife Julie (Audrey Totter) who doesn’t want him to be turned into a vegetable. In nearly real-time, the film plays out with Stoker arriving at the arena, waiting his turn in the locker room with the other boxers in his troupe as he prepares for his match with a much younger boxer named Tiger Nelson. What Stoker doesn’t know is that his manager has struck a deal with Tiger’s manager for him to take a dive that night.

As a pure boxing film, The Set-Up ranks up there with the best of them. Stylistically, the boxing match that makes up the centerpiece of the film is filmed in real-time, with entire rounds played out before us. This fight is infused with a heavy dose of realism. Many of the camera vantages are from the perspective of the audience. I also love the choreography of the boxing match itself. We realise that these boxers are not world beaters; they are tough guys making the circuit and their boxing reflects this. Thus, it feels brutal, desperate and utterly devoid of trumped-up heroism. Boxing here comes across as an ugly carnival show, and adding to this environment are quick asides to certain sadistic audience members as they encourage the boxers to kill each other. One other plus to this scene is that there is no side commentary from a broadcaster to the match. We’re smart enough to know what’s happening in the match and don’t need a "Jim Lampley" telling us what we already know. I can think of very few other boxing scenes in any other movie that are portrayed better than the one in The Set-Up.

What elevates the film is the moral complexity brought about from the fact that Stoker is not told of this deal to take the dive, providing the film with the existential crises that is so prevalent in film noir. It’s so suspenseful for the audience to know more than the Stoker character knows in this plot. As Stoker continues to perform better as the match goes on, there comes a point where Stoker knows more than we do, switching the suspense and leaving the audience in the dark. Film noir elements come to the foreground especially in the last 15 minutes of the film following the boxing match and it’s not fair for me to give certain key plot points away. Let’s just say that the brutal boxing match just completed is nothing compared to what Stoker faces once the match is over. Of course in film noir, shadows and mise-en-scene play a huge role in setting up the psychological fear facing the protagonist. There’s a great scene as Stoker wanders around the darkened and empty arena after the match is over. He disappears down a darkened corridor and returns, his face bathed in harsh white light while everything is shadow around him. Needless to say, I love everything about this film from its quick pacing, to great performances, cinematography, and boxing sequence. This is one of my favorite film noirs and favorite sports movies.