Odds Against Tomorrow

ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW                 A-                   

USA  (96 mi)  1959  d:  Robert Wise

Influenced by THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950), while also the only American film that even remotely resembles the stylistic virtuosity of John Cassavetes classic Shadows (1959), this was the first production of Harry Belafonte’s own company, HarBel Productions, making this the first film noir with a black protagonist.  Adapted from the William P. McGivern novel, a crime novelist known for his focus on characterization and the psychological effects of corruption in the big city, to capture the gritty realism they were looking for they hired blacklisted writer Abraham Polonsky from Force of Evil (1948) to write the script under an assumed name of John O. Killens, where the writing credit wasn’t officially restored until 1997.  Jean-Pierre Melville credited this film as a formative influence, while James Ellroy is quoted in a July 1998 British Neon magazine article listing his ten favorite crime films (all 50’s films except his top two), James Ellroy Selects His Ten Favourite Crime Films – July '98:

This is almost the very anatomy of noir in that it deals with racism and fucked up sexuality.  It’s a film of desperate, twisted guys anxious to make one last score, robbing a smalltown bank in upstate New York.  Of course they’re subconsciously self-destructive men and they screw it all up.  It’s just the best heist-gone-wrong movie ever made.  It’s also rooting through the psychological and social issues of the time, which are significant and profound.  Robert Ryan is really fuckin’ great in this and Harry Belafonte is good too. 

Robert Wise, whose directing credits include WEST SIDE STORY (1961) and THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965), listed as #2 and #4 on AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals, may also forever be known as the guy RKO Studios brought in to recut the end of Orson Welles’ THE MAGNIFICENT ANDERSONS (1942), actually reshooting several sequences, considered one of the great hack jobs in cinema history, as the original Welles ending was destroyed and has been lost forever.  Wise’s track record with film noir, however, is pretty good, including BORN TO KILL (1947), the nastiest of his noirs, THE SET-UP (1949), a gut-wrenching boxing drama that won the Critics Prize at Cannes, and this remarkable film which is just loaded with late 50’s atmosphere, starting with a brilliant jazz score written by John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet (Milt Jackson vibes, Percy Heath bass, Connie Kay drums, Bill Evans piano, Jim Hall electric guitar, Joe Wilder trumpet, and a studio orchestra), Odds Against Tomorrow (John Lewis) Highlights - YouTube (13:27), and the strikingly fresh black and white cinematography from Joseph C. Brun.  Shot on exquisite locations on Riverside Drive in Manhattan (also the soundstages of the Gold Medal Studios in the Bronx) and in the small Hudson Valley town of Hudson, New York (identified as Melton in the film) about 120 miles north, both of which are located on the banks of the Hudson River, each providing their own unique charm, from the kinetic vibrancy of big city life to the seedy squalor of the desolate industrial landscape alongside the railroad tracks, used to great effect in the haunting poetry of extended sequences before the planned heist, as each man is lost in their own thoughts waiting it out alone while quiet jazz interludes accentuate the melancholy of these isolated moments.  Jazz scores became popularized with Michel Legrand’s dreamy and melodic score to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg) (1964), where every song feels hummable, but in terms of films literally drenched in sensuous atmosphere, consider Alex North’s moody score in Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), one of the earliest jazz scores in American film, wonderfully capturing the simmering heat and sweat of the story and its New Orleans location, Streetcar Named Desire - Alex North (Highlights) - YouTube (6:05), or Elmer Bernstein’s collaboration with Chico Hamilton in Alexander Mackendrick’s SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957) heard here “Night Beat” (2:16), Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s music for Otto Preminger’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959), one of the greatest scores of all time, where a snippet can be heard here Flirtibird (2:14), (all of which can be heard on a 5-CD recording Jazz On Film Noir (Vol 1-5) by Various Artists on Spotify), while who could ignore Louis Malle’s collaboration with Miles Davis in FRANTIC (1958), renamed ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS, JEANNE MOREAU IN "LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD" (MILES DAVIS THEME) YouTube (2:15), composed in a one night session, music that so beautifully captures the aching sorrow of loneliness, sadness, anxiety, and regret, where the record under the original title remains a collector’s item. 

It should probably come as no surprise that Polonsky’s screenplay is riveting throughout, where this is largely a grim character study of three down and out, self-destructive men that “lead lives of quiet desperation,” yet cover their inner anxiety with male bravado and bluster.  Opening on the windswept streets of New York where the sun is out but the overcast sky is dark and foreboding, we feel the emptiness in the lives of the characters even before they are introduced.  Robert Ryan is Earl Slater, a hard-nosed and embittered ex-con initially shot on infra red film, bleaching his skin tone, making him appear as a walking ghost as he approaches Hotel Juno on Riverside Drive.  The first words out of his mouth are racially derisive, mocking a young black girl playing out front on the sidewalk, picking her up and calling her a “Pickaninny.”  Inside the hotel, he has no time for small talk, ignoring the friendly chat from the black elevator operator, Mel Stewart in his first uncredited role before Nothing But a Man (1964), heading straight for the room of Ed Begley as Dave Burke, an ex-cop whose career was ruined when he refused to cooperate with State Crime Investigators (a pointed reference to McCarthyism and Hollywood blacklisting).  Both men at their end of their rope, world weary and broke, they don’t even like each other, which is not altogether uncommon among criminals, but the question is can they work together to pull off one last big score in what seems to be a well-thought out bank heist?  Slater doesn’t like it, sensing more risk than reward and backs out of the deal.  Within minutes of his departure, Harry Belafonte as compulsive gambler and nightclub singer Johnny Ingram pulls up in his white Alfa Romeo sports car, joking with the kids outside and paying them money to look after his car, and unlike Slater, actually engages in friendly conversation with the elevator operator before knocking on Burke’s door.  Despite owing heavy debts to underworld loan sharks, where he could use some quick cash, he backs out as well, as bank robbery is not his thing.  What follows afterwards is an intimate exposure to the deteriorating lives of these two men living on the edge, where Slater is living in a hotel with a hopelessly devoted girl that’s crazy about him, Shelley Winters as Lorry, but he’s growing sick of living off of her money.  His wounded male pride leads him back to Burke, who outlines his plan, targeting a small team of bank clerks working after hours every Thursday evening when the bank is full of cash preparing the next day’s factory payrolls, where they open a side door for a delivery of coffee and sandwiches (delivered by a black man), which is their way in, and why they need Ingram.  Slater is fine with the idea except for one problem, “You didn’t say nothin’ about the third man being a nigger,” which is a perfect lead-in to Ingram’s nightclub act, Odds Against Tomorrow - The Club Scene (1959) (9:16), which is strangely interrupted by the overtly gay advances of Coco (Richard Bright), one of the bodyguards of the mob loan shark Bacco (Will Kulava) who’s come to collect after Burke urged him to put the squeeze on Johnny.  Ingram’s marriage is on the rocks from his gambling habits, where it’s clear his wife Ruth (Kim Hamilton) still has feelings for him, but doesn’t trust his irresponsible example in front of their young daughter Eadie (Lois Thorne), who obviously adores her father, where we actually get a glimpse inside a middle class black household, extremely rare for 50’s films, where an integrated PTA meeting is going on in her living room.  All of these social references to blacklisting, racism, integration, homosexuality, capitalism and pursuing the American Dream add a unique context to this film, giving it an underlying socio-political subtext, where the darker elements of film noir allow a certain subversive thematic content to appear in the otherwise conformist era of the 50’s.  Bacco’s strong arm tactics, threatening Ingram’s wife and child, drive him back into the waiting arms of Burke, the mastermind behind the operation, but not before a blistering argument between Ingram and his wife:

Ruth:  The child can’t have a father that lives your life. 

Johnny:  You’re tough.

Ruth:  Not tough enough to change you.

Johnny:  For what?  To hold hands with these ofay friends of yours.

Ruth:  I’m trying to make a world fit for Eadie to live in.  It’s a cinch you’re not going to do it with a deck of cards and a racing form.

Johnny:  But you are, huh?  You and your big white brothers.  Drink enough tea with ‘em and stay out of the watermelon patch and maybe our little colored girl will grow up to be Miss America, is that it?

Ruth:  I won’t listen when you talk like that.  You’d better go.

Johnny:  Why don’t you wise up, Ruth?  It’s their world and we’re just living in it. 

Not sure you hear that kind of dialogue anywhere else.  It is significant that this film was released “before” the Civil Rights era, where Slater’s views were in step with the views of a majority of whites, especially in the South where in September 1957, Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus became the national symbol of racial segregation when he used National Guardsmen to block the enrollment of nine black students who had been ordered by a federal judge to desegregate Little Rock’s Central High School, requiring President Eisenhower to send in U.S. Army troops to enforce the order.  It is in this poisonous racial atmosphere that the film was released, causing little stir at the box office, presumably due to the social objections.  ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW is film noir’s pessimistic answer to the feelgood liberalism of Stanley Kramer’s more hopeful THE DEFIANT ONES (1958), featuring black and white actors Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis as escaped convicts who are literally chained together by leg irons in a film wondering whether blacks and whites could set aside their differences and actually work together in the interest of survival, where they both end up cradled in each other’s arms at the end.  Slater’s unrelenting racism is shocking in its raw unfiltered expression, where Ingram hates him the minute he sees him.  Both men are given scenes of public humiliation sending them over to the dark side, as Johnny gets drunk and makes a fool of himself onstage, while Earl is goaded into a senseless bar fight with a soldier (Wayne Rogers) who’s just showing off trying to impress a girl.  The outcome in each case is awkward and unexpected, where both come off as loose cannons.  Robert Ryan is thoroughly convincing in one of his best roles, completely emasculated, associating lack of money with a lack of self respect, seething with anger and self-disgust, showing his true loner qualities when he toys with the flirtatious interest of his neighbor Helen (Gloria Graham), first rejecting and then succumbing to her sexual advances, becoming an erotic dance of seduction, where her arousal is stimulated by descriptive thoughts of how he killed a man barehanded, which he willingly whispers into her ear.  Both worked together a decade previously in Edward Dmytryk’s CROSSFIRE (1947) and their raw and smoldering descent off the edge of respectability into the darker realms of S/M territory is one of the more graphically revealing scenes of the film, especially the world weariness and self-loathing they both convey.  Ryan and Belafonte work exceedingly well together as well, where in real life Ryan was a progressive leftist speaking out for economic and racial justice as early as the 30’s and 40’s, refusing to cave in to the intimidation and smear tactics of McCarthyism, repeatedly defending the rights and civil liberties of those like Polonsky who came under attack.   But in the film, Slater is violent and miserable, lashing out at a world that refuses to accept him, growing so brutally antagonistic that his noxious racial contempt calling Johnny “boy” even draws the ire of Burke. 

Don’t beat out that Civil War jazz here, Slater!  We’re all in this together, each man equal.  And we’re taking care of each other.  It’s one big play, our one and only chance to grab stakes forever.  And I don't want to hear what your grandpappy thought on the old farm down in Oklahoma!  You got it?

While the robbery is saved for the end, this corrosive hatred seen throughout powerfully sets the stage for what follows, where they split up to avoid being conspicuous, with Ingram arriving by bus, while Slater drives the getaway car, meeting Burke dressed as a hunter just outside Melton, becoming a tense crime procedural whose brilliance is taking its time before the main event, shifting the exteriors from a teeming city landscape to an outlying industrial wasteland, where time literally stops, each man biding their time to allow reflective, contemplative moments where the poetic images of a desolate sky over the river beautifully merge with the quiet improvisation of the music.  Slowly the characters reconnect into the normal routines of any small town, where people stop and talk to strangers on the street and don’t simply ignore one another like they do in the cities.  Still, they reappear back on the streets like the walking dead, ghosts of humanity who would prefer to remain invisible, hoping to make quick work of it before they can get away unseen.  All tormented by their own personal demons, tensions mount as things begin to unravel despite having devised an excellent plan, where it’s a good idea using a side door entrance offering little protection from the unexpected and out of sight from the main street.  Thoroughly unprepared for the worst, however, falling victim to their own ineptitude by their blatant unwillingness to trust and help one another, there are swift mood changes where they quickly turn on each other instead, and with a vengeance, as Slater continues to insult Ingram, fulfilling each bleak promise that this film makes.  Steeped in a mood of existential dread, forced to crawl out of the global catastrophe that was World War II, living under the specter of the atomic bomb and global annihilation, these men operate under a disastrous cloud of fatalistic possibilities, each one a powder keg waiting to explode, continually colliding into one another during the build-up, where racial hatred eventually ignites the fuse.  The stunning originality of the work suffers from a finale that we’ve seen before, whether it be Raoul Walsh’s White Heat (1949), though Cagney’s Cody Jarrett intentionally chooses his fate while here it happens accidentally, Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955) or Sam Fuller’s House of Bamboo (1955), all reflecting culture clashes along with increasing apprehensions of impending disaster during the nuclear age, while the heist-gone-wrong format does recall Kubrick’s equally taut THE KILLING (1956).  While it is a fitting conclusion, with no hero or villain in a conventional sense, it resembles the rebellious examples of gangster films of the 30’s like Cagney’s ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938) or THE ROARING TWENTIES (1939), while the granddaddy of them all may be Bonnie and Clyde (1967), all Depression era films where oppressive social and economic forces turn the protagonists into thieves, where robbery is an act of rebellion against that oppression.  Money is the key to power and respect in modern society, and without it, Slater and Burke feel powerless, struggling against an unyielding society that offers no second chances for aging ex-cons, where one last score can somehow reinstate their lost manhood, while Ingram is up against a nation that promises equality, but it only exists out there somewhere just out of reach.  In the end Slater and Ingram are eventually made equal in spite of themselves.  The film is listed at #16 on the “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller’s Top 25 Noir Films - Eddie Muller. 

Body and Soul (1947)

John Garfield giving his testimony before HUAC, April 23, 1951

 

BODY AND SOUL        A-                 
USA  (104 mi)  1947  d:  Robert Rossen

Money’s got no conscience, Charlie.  Here, take it.       —Roberts (Lloyd Gough)

According to film critic Jim Hoberman, author of several books and longtime critic for The Village Voice, BODY AND SOUL (47) is the most Jewish film released between THE JAZZ SINGER (1927) and THE PRODUCERS (1967), where more communists worked on this movie than any other American film, described as the product of the most concentrated leftist radical energy ever seen in Hollywood, released shortly before the House Un-American Activities Committee held nine days of hearings in October 1947 into alleged communist propaganda and influence in the Hollywood motion picture industry.  This was precipitated by a July 29, 1946 column entitled “A Vote for Joe Stalin” written by William R. Wilkerson, publisher and founder of The Hollywood Reporter, who provided a list of alleged communists and their sympathizers.  Drawing upon the list, which included 43 subpoenaed names, 19 of whom refused to testify, leading to ten writers and directors known as the Hollywood Ten who were cited for contempt of Congress and immediately fired the next day by the studios, creating a Hollywood blacklist on November 25, 1947.  Eventually more than 300 artists, including directors, radio commentators, actors, and most notably screenwriters were blacklisted by the studios in hearings that lasted into the early 1950’s.  While the blacklist was rarely made explicit or verifiable, it directly damaged the careers of scores of individuals working in the motion picture industry, some of whom left the country to find work elsewhere, while some worked under aliases, and others remained out of work for over a decade.  The blacklist was rooted in events of the 30’s during the Great Depression when two major industry strikes increased tensions between the producers and the unions, particularly the Screen Writers Guild, which came under attack by the House Un-American Activities Committee for the radical leanings of many of its members, which escalated in 1947 when more than a dozen writers were called to testify.  Among the films scrutinized by the committee were Frank Capra’s IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), something of a surprise, and Edward Dmytryk’s CROSSFIRE (1947), a searing portrait of anti-Semitism, where Dmytryk is one of the Hollywood Ten.  While there was a wartime alliance against Hitler and Nazi Germany between the United States and the Soviet Union, postwar perceptions changed, with communists increasingly coming under fire, becoming a focus of American fears and hatred.  Of interest, in 2012, in a 65th anniversary article, Wilkerson’s son apologized for the newspaper’s role in the blacklist, claiming his father was motivated by revenge for his own thwarted ambition to own a studio.  The committee was always looking for a big named Hollywood star to provide an exclamation point to their work, placing much of their emphasis on John Garfield who was called before the HUAC committee in 1951.

John Garfield was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan to Russian Jewish immigrants in a poor, working class neighborhood where communists were not unusual and were simply part of the everyday landscape, joining Lee Strasberg’s New York-based Group Theater before moving to Hollywood in the late 30’s where he became associated with gritty, hard-nosed, and working-class characters.  While his wife was a communist, as was his secretary, there’s no indication Garfield was ever a member, nonetheless the House Un-American Activities Committee hounded Garfield to his death, as after his original testimony, he learned they were reviewing the transcripts for possible perjury charges, where he died at the age of 39 of a heart attack, allegedly aggravated by the stress of the blacklisting.  Director Robert Rossen’s parents were also Russian Jewish immigrants from the Lower East Side, where both Rossen and Garfield ran in a similar gang-infested world of gamblers, bootleggers, hustlers, and prostitutes, where Rossen was drawn to the Communist Party as a form of social protest against the disillusionment caused by the social and economic hardships of the Depression in the 30’s.  Add to this screenwriter Abraham Polonsky, also from Russian Jewish parents in New York, where we begin to see a pattern of real life that left an imprint on each of these artists.  Rossen was blacklisted in 1951, one of the 19 unfriendly witnesses who refused to testify in 1947, but felt deceived and disillusioned by the Communist Party’s support of the brutal Russian dictatorship under Stalin, breaking all prior ties with the party in 1949, but was able to work again in 1953 after providing the names of 57 other people who were or had been communists.  If one explores the narrative of his later work THE HUSTLER (1961), in many ways it parallels the themes and storyline of BODY AND SOUL.  It’s also interesting that ALL THE KING’S MEN (1949), directed before the blacklisting, and THE HUSTLER (1961), directed afterwards, were both selected to the National Film Registry.  Both Polonsky and Garfield, teamed up again in Force of Evil (1948), were blacklisted as much for the tone of their films as their politics, where Polonsky’s heroes are cocky, self-assured loners who are outside the mainstream of society, the kind of guys that break the rules in order to get ahead, often disregarding the interests of others, while Garfield was viewed as a working class hero, a kid literally from the streets who became a success in Hollywood bringing a rough-edged authenticity to his characters.  These were not the cardboard cut out caricatures of morally righteous men that dominated Hollywood cinema.  Polonsky also wrote a part for a washed-up boxer (Canada Lee, a middleweight boxing champion of the 30’s, who also died shortly after being blacklisted) in BODY AND SOUL, one of the earlier examples of a black character portrayed with such humanity, a man exploited whose feelings and emotions mattered, exactly the kind of challenging work that was viewed as critical of America and raised the suspicions of the HUAC Committee.   

While perhaps impossible to believe today, but in the 30’s and 40’s perhaps one-third of all boxers were Jewish, as they were the ethnic group rising from the slums to get a chance to make something of themselves.  Given such skillful direction by Rossen, along with Polonsky’s blunt cynicism in a screenplay about how the system is fixed, Garfield’s own street swagger makes him born to play boxer Charlie Davis, something of an update on the Clifford Odets Group Theater play The Golden Boy, which tackles a film noir theme of a working class hero who is exploited and eventually brought down by the corrupt forces of capitalism, where the fight promoter Roberts (Lloyd Gough) could just as easily be George C. Scott as the unscrupulous manager Bert Gordon in THE HUSTLER, or Don King during the Muhammad Ali era, as he’s little more than a sophisticated gangster who bankrolls the fights, but takes no chances when it comes to his money, so he fixes the outcome, then makes a killing on the betting odds.  The first boxing movie to shine a light on the sport’s ugly underbelly, the sport is still tainted by this underworld association with gambling, where Las Vegas, a town built by organized crime, continues to set the odds.  It’s this lurid world of gangsters, sleaze, and trouble that provides the backdrop for the film, much of which is told in an extended flashback to happier times when Charlie was just a young punk from the slums of New York, where his family is barely scraping by running a corner candy store, where Charlie is a legend in the neighborhood, known for his quick hands, going against the wishes of his mother (Anne Revere, yes, actually related to Paul Revere) who tells him “That is no way to live, hitting people and knocking their teeth out.”  But his early success draws the attention of Quinn (William Conrad), a local fight promoter with dubious underworld connections, where the dark world of boxing is balanced by the charming innocence of the girl of his dreams, Peg (Lilli Palmer, with just a trace of her native German accent), who could care less about the fight game, but loves him for who he is.  The film won an Academy Award for Best Editing, as the early fight sequences streamed together, one after the other in quick succession, resemble newsreel documentary footage, spinning newspaper headlines, traveling in high speed locomotives from town to town, where his name continually rises from being at the bottom of the boxing posters until he’s one of the featured names on top.  Notoriety brings the opportunity for fame and fortune, where the lure of money and a chance to fight for the title leads him to Roberts, a mob-connected promoter who dictates the terms of each fight, where the money is too good to turn down.  When Peg sees who he’s dealing with, gangsters and hangers-on, and how they “take care” of Shorty (Joseph Pevney), Charlie’s longtime friend from the neighborhood who dies in an accident shortly after being roughed up, she leaves him with all the underworld undesirables, refusing to be part of that world.   

With Roberts, however, Charlie rakes in the dough, becoming noticeably more greedy and ruthless, where there’s plenty of money to spread around and he’s suddenly the king of the world, drawing the attention of opportunist lounge-singer Alice (Hazel Brooks), formerly Quinn’s girlfriend, who loves the finer things in life.  So long as Charlie provides the money train, she’ll play along, grabbing everything she can get, where Charlie’s too wrapped up in the bright lights to see the real picture.  The constant fights, however, and the high living take a toll on him, where a guy can’t fight forever, leading to one final championship fight, seen as the ultimate payday, where like Mildred Pierce (1945) the whole film is one long pre-fight flashback, where his entire life is flashing before his eyes.  For Charlie and his entourage, it’s all about money and success, as that’s the American Dream, but there’s an interesting scene that plays out in his mother’s kitchen, where a Jewish kid from the neighborhood is delivering his mother’s groceries, and when he sees Charlie, he can’t hold back how proud the whole neighborhood is of him, especially at a time when the Nazi’s are killing Jews in Europe.  Interestingly, this 20-second segment was often cut by distributors in the European prints, a practice revealed when the scene was missing from a DVD cut from a European print, but his brief little scene may be the most interesting sequence in the film, suggesting there has to be more to live for than just money, adding a human element that elevates the film.  The role of Charlie was based upon real life Jewish boxer Barney Ross, born Dov-Ber Rasofsky (also depicted in André de Toth’s 1957 film MONKEY ON MY BACK), a world champion in three weight divisions and a decorated World War II Marine veteran who fought back from drug addiction, who also came from a hard scrabble working class neighborhood where he ran around with local toughs.  A rabbi’s son, where his father was the owner of a small vegetable shop in Chicago's Maxwell Street neighborhood, Ross was idolized and respected by all Americans, but he openly embraced his role not only as a winner in the ring, but as a role model for Jews against the virulent anti-Jewish venom displayed by Hitler, displaying the strength and courage of fighting back.  Polonsky’s script includes the heroic view of how others see Charlie, but his view of himself is the larger question, especially when he’s ordered by Roberts to throw the fight.  This ethical dilemma has a staggering impact, beautifully set up by Charlie’s rise through the ranks, where he becomes spoiled by his success, showing arrogance and greed.  The fluid mobility of the fight sequences, especially the climactic fight, so beautifully shot by cinematographer James Wong Howe, was captured on rollerskates as he glided across the ring with a handheld camera, using eight different cameras in all, three on dollies, two handheld, and three on cranes hovering above, creating a dreamlike flurry of motion, where the screams of the audience and the constant flash of light bulbs from the photographers adds an astonishing level of gritty realism, where Garfield was knocked out and injured during the filming of one of his fight scenes, which is exactly what Martin Scorsese loved about the film when describing its impact on RAGING BULL (1980).  But it’s Garfield’s intense personal magnetism and his ability to express human decency, however tarnished, where ultimately he refuses to be humiliated and exploited, that elevate this film to lofty heights, as he paved the way for flawed human characters, including social misfits and outsiders, like Marlon Brando and James Dean, but also fellow New Yorkers Robert de Niro and Al Pacino.