5 Against the House (1955)

Four vets attending college on the GI Bill and a cabaret singer try to rob a Rno Casino and pull off the perfect crime.

Director:

Phil Karlson

Writers:

Stirling Silliphant (screenplay), William Bowers (screenplay),

Stars:

Guy Madison, Kim Novak, Brian Keith

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Guy Madison	...	Al Mercer
Kim Novak	...	Kay Greylek
Brian Keith	...	Brick
Alvy Moore	...	Roy
Kerwin Mathews	...	Ronnie
William Conrad	...	Eric Berg
Jack Dimond	...	Francis Spiegelbauer
Jean Willes	...	Virginia

Storyline

Four college buddies enjoy a night at a Reno casino and overhear a cop saying that robbing the casino "cannot be done." That gets the brainiest rich kid among them thinking up a plan for the perfect robbery. He convinces the others to join in when they hear that it will only be a college hoax, his plan being to let the police know where the money is afterwards. The thing is, one of his friends has a head injury from the war, and has no intention of returning a dime.

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Plot Keywords:

casino | college | perfect crime | friend | robbery | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Romance | Thriller

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 June 1955 (USA)

Also Known As:

4 Homens e Uma Mulher

Filming Locations:

Columbia/Sunset Gower Studios - 1438 N. Gower Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Dayle, Columbia Pictures Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

84 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

First filmed screenplay for writer/screenwriter Stirling Silliphant.

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Goofs

En route to Reno while riding in house trailer, thieves put on gloves and begin wiping down interior so their fingerprints can't be traced, but in following scenes, before they've reached destination, are no longer wearing gloves and are touching everything.

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Quotes

Roy: I've just rubbed the queen of spades so hard I've turned it into a jack.

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Connections

Referenced in The Graduate (1967)

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Soundtracks

"I Went Out of My Way"
(uncredited)
Written by Helen Bliss

User Reviews

Seven Against the House

Kim Novak is of course terrific (she rarely phoned one in), and it's an interesting pre-star turn, meaning before PICNIC and VERTIGO, but the rest of the cast is pretty interesting, and particularly Brian Keith---Keith did a lot of 50's B-picture work that's worth watching, if you can find it. The real reason to see this picture is because it's a Phil Karlson. Karlson is one of those guys like Don Siegel, who came up in the studio system just before television. Early live TV produced people like Frankenheimer and Arthur Penn and Paddy Chayevsky, but there were already guys in the trenches like Siegel and Karlson, who got the chance to direct because they could do it quick and cheap, but make a picture look like it didn't come from Poverty Row. (See, for example, Clint Eastwood's PLAY MISTY FOR ME. Eastwood got his shot by rock-bottom budgeting, a lesson he might have learned from Siegel.) Karlson is due for a re-evaluation, along with, say, Budd Boetticher and Burt Kennedy. Siegel seems to be getting his due, not that he couldn't use an occasional boost. But watch this, and maybe THE PHENIX CITY STORY (not a misspelling), and tell me Karlson can't do it tense.