Summary
At the Copacabana Club in New York City, people gather around candlelit tables, and Bobby Rydell is singing with a big band. Tony "Tony Lip" Vallelonga is a doorman and bouncer at the club and shows people to their seats. He accepts a tip from some patrons as Bobby Rydell begins to sing. A cigarette girl takes cigarettes and cigars around to various tables, while an older man taps along.
A man named Mr. Loscudo brings his hat and coat to the coatcheck girl, telling her the hat is very special and needs to be guarded closely, as it was a gift from his mother. Nearby, Tony hears this exchange, and when Mr. Loscudo goes to talk to a manager, Carmine, handing him a hefty tip, Tony asks the coatcheck girl to give him Loscudo's hat and gives her some money to do so.
In the club, a fistfight breaks out, and the man tapping along to the music calls for Tony Lip, who runs to break up the fight, punching one of the men and dragging the other out to the street, and punching him several more times after the man tries to enter the club again. He gets blood all over his white shirt.
The scene shifts and we Loscudo livid and screaming about his missing hat. "I don't get my hat, I'll burn the Copa down!" he screams. Outside, someone hangs a sign that says that the Copacabana is closing for renovations, and Tony bemoans the fact that he's going to have to go back to driving garbage trucks to make a living.
The old man who was sitting at the table alone comes outside and tells Tony to take him home, and Tony obliges.
As Loscudo sits around a table gambling, Tony comes in and throws the hat on the table, claiming that he tracked down the missing hat. When Loscudo hands him a tip, Tony feigns humility, but Loscudo insists and tells him to call him Gio.
Back in the Bronx, Tony parks in front of a fire hydrant, putting a garbage can over the fire hydrant to disguise his parking violation. Inside, he takes a bottle of milk out of the fridge and takes a swig. In his kids' room, he kisses them in their beds and climbs into his own bed nearby, next to his wife, Dolores. "Good morning," she says, to which he responds, "Good night."
That day, Tony comes into his living room to find a group of men, family members, watching a baseball game. When Tony asks why they're there, one of the men points out that there are two black men there fixing the sink and they want to make sure she's safe.
Looking into the kitchen, Tony notices that Dolores has given the repairmen glasses of lemonade. After she walks the men out, Tony goes into the kitchen and throws the two glasses in the trash.
The family gathers around the table for a meal and Dolores mentions that Tony needs a job. One of the men says that Tony should have never punched the foreman at his job at the Sanitation Department. "He shouldn't have woke me up," Tony jokes.
In the kitchen, Dolores finds the glasses in the trash and shakes her head. One of the men takes Tony to a diner and they talk to a man named Paulie who wants to see if Tony will enter into a hot dog eating competition on a bet. Tony agrees and enters the hot dog eating contest against Paulie.
After, he returns home and tells Dolores that Paulie bet him $50 that he could eat more hot dogs, and then ate 24 hot dogs in the competition. He then tells his wife that he ate 26 and hands her $50. The phone rings, and it's Jules, the older man from the club, who tells him that they got a call from a doctor looking for a driver, and gives him the address for Carnegie Hall.
Tony goes to Carnegie Hall and goes into the large theater, where a manager directs him upstairs to Dr. Shirley's apartment. Outside the apartment, two older men wait for an interview. When an assistant, Amit, comes out, Tony tells him who he is, and Amit gives him a form to fill out while he waits.
Amit brings Tony into Dr. Shirley's apartment, an ornate and formal sitting room with tasseled lamps, fine leather chairs, and elephant tusks that Tony squints at. Don Shirley comes out in a robe and greets Tony, before sitting down to interview him.
Tony expresses some confusion about the nature of the job and tells Don that he was a garbage truck driver and that he used to drive his boss home every night. Don asks Tony what he did at the clubs he has worked at, and Tony cryptically tells him, "Public relations."
Don then tells Tony that he's not a medical doctor, but a concert pianist who will be traveling to the Midwest and the South to do a tour. When he asks Tony if he would have any trouble working for a black man, Tony tells him that he and his wife had a few "colored guys" over to his house for drinks—an obvious lie. Don tells Tony that the job will require him to be away from his family for eight straight weeks until Christmas.
Tony asks how much it pays, and Don tells him it will be $100 a week plus room and board. At this point, Don makes it clear to Tony that it will not just be the work of a chauffeur, but that he will also require that Tony take care of his itinerary, be an assistant, and take care of his clothes and shoes. At this, Tony balks, insulted to be asked to do such work for a black man, stands and says, "Good luck, Doc," before starting to leave the room. Before Tony can leave, Don tells him that several people recommended him for the job for his "innate ability to handle trouble."
Tony tells Don squarely that he is not a butler, but he would be happy to act as a chauffeur, before adding that he would charge $125. "Or go hire that little Chink just pranced out of here. See how far you get," he says, referring to an Asian man who he saw in the hall. "Thank you for stopping by," Don says, and Tony leaves.
At a bar later, the bartender tells Tony that a man named Augie was asking after him, and that he is in a booth in the corner of the bar. Tony goes over to the booth, which has a curtain, and climbs inside, where a group of mobsters are eating. Augie asks Tony about his fight with the man at the Copa, and asks if Tony wants to earn some extra money working for the mafia. "What I gotta do?" Tony asks, to which Augie replies, "Things."
Tony declines and goes to pawn his watch. The man behind the counter gives him 50 and tells him that if he gives him 60 by New Years' he can have the watch back.
At home, Dolores asks about the interview with Don and he explains that he was not a real doctor, but a pianist. When he tells Dolores that Don is black, Dolores says, "You wouldn't last a week with him."
The next morning, the phone rings, and Tony answers, half awake. It's Don calling, and he wants to talk to Dolores. When she picks up, he makes sure that she's okay with her husband being away for two months. When she hangs up, she tells Tony that he got the job and that Don will pay him $125 a week. Tony notices that she seems sad, and assures her that it will be okay.
The next day, two men from the record company give Tony the first half of his pay and say that he'll get the second half when it's over. "We got to have some guarantee you're gonna finish the job," the man says and hands him keys to a car and a guide book, called "The Negro Motorists' Green Book" that explains which hotels and restaurants are amenable to black people.
Tony says goodbye to his two sons and Dolores. Before he leaves, Dolores makes him promise to write her letters on the road, even though he's embarrassed about his writing. He hands her the check, the first half of his pay, and she hands him a bag of sandwiches for him and Dr. Shirley. They kiss goodbye and she tells him to be home in time for Christmas.
Analysis
The film lands the viewer immediately in the glitzy but underhanded world of the Copacabana Club, where wealthy Italian-Americans come to wine and dine. As Bobby Rydell sings a jubilant song with a big band, patrons hand members of the staff hefty tips for small tasks. The world of the club is one of near-constant exchange, and just below the surface of the glittery facades is a less-than-savory mafia ethic, in which crimes can easily get paid off and smiles cover up unethical dealings.
While he is not part of this world from the inside, Tony Vallelonga, the protagonist, knows how to play the game. For instance, he accepts tips with a smile and even goes so far as to steal a wealthy patron's most beloved hat in hopes that he will receive an even heftier tip for its return. He understands the ways that mobsters think and plays the game to get ahead. Additionally, he is portrayed as a man who is acquainted with doing the dirty work when he needs to, as highlighted by the sequence in which he breaks up the fist fight in the club by punching one of the fighters, blood splattering all over his white shirt.
Racial tensions come to light early on, when we see the way the Italian-American men view black men in the Bronx. When Tony finds a group of men over at his apartment, they tell him they're there to make sure that Dolores is safe from the repairmen, and after the black repairmen have fixed the Vallelonga's sink and had something to drink, Tony throws away their glasses, an act of prejudice. Early on, the film establishes that the white characters, and Tony in particular, are bigoted.
Tony and Don Shirley could not contrast with one another much more. In addition to their different racial backgrounds, they come from markedly different classes, Tony an ex-garbage truck driver struggling to make ends meet for his family, and Don a wealthy and well-educated concert pianist who lives in a gold-covered apartment above Carnegie Hall. Where Don speaks in a measured, thoughtful, and formal tone, Tony is crass and coarse, speaking casually and at times rudely. The difference between them is pronounced.
Even though they are an unlikely pair, Dr. Shirley recognizes that Tony is the best man for the job and offers it to him. Tony is coarse and demonstrably racist, but this does not seem to matter to the proper Dr. Shirley, who prioritizes bulk over brains for the job of his chauffeur. With the approval of Dolores, Don and Tony set out on their journey.
