Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), which stars Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Ed Begley, and Gloria Grahame, is written by blacklisted screenwriter Abraham Polonsky and directed by Robert Wise.   The last great film noir of the black & white era, Odds Against Tomorrow reflects the author's strong social conscience--as racial conflict is portrayed as central to the failure of a bank robbery. 

This publication of the complete script of Odds Against Tomorrow blends the shooting script (written before the film was shot) and the continuity script (the elements which are contained in the finished film). 

The critical analysis draws extensively on specially conducted interviews with Robert Wise, Harry Belafonte and Abraham Polonsky.  Discussed in depth are the significance of a black protagonist within the film noir genre; the film's status within African-American related cinema; the adaptation from William McGivern's novel;  and the critically celebrated jazz score by John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet. 

The linguistic irony of noir is that with few exceptions, it has always been a white style: that is to say, a style made by, for and about white people.  What it rarely deals with is race.
--David Ansen (Film critic, Newsweek)