One of the most interesting aspects of Atlantic City was a scene set in a parking garage in which large platform moved around as if this was some sort of automobile vending machine. That picture was from 1980, so I was very surprised to see a similar garage in 1955’s Five Against the House. In a lesser noir, that would upstage the rest of the picture. Fortunately, this one has a solid enough cast and premise to hold its own against such visuals.
The location is Reno, and the real-life Harold’s Club casino fascinates a group of students from nearby Midwestern University. It especially intrigues Kerwin Matthews, who thinks he has a foolproof system to game the gaming industry. He will be proven wrong, prompting friend Alvy Moore to ask him, “Did you explain to them your system is infallible?” Matthews would have been better off subjecting himself to blind luck, such as their friends Guy Madison does when he wins $50 on a single slot pull. In the meantime, the fourth man rounding out the group, Brian Keith, just seems mildly amused by everything around him.
And this is one crazy place. Shot in the actual casino, it looks like kind of deranged hunting lodge, what with so many antique guns mounted to the walls. Funny how most such establishments to do provide within reach the instruments with which they can be robbed.
But Matthews won’t even need a gun for the heist he has planned. Having observed employee William Conrad with the cart he rolls through the casino to receive and distribute money, he hatches the idea of a cart with a tape player inside. At the push of a button, that recording starts playing what will be a series of statements and long pauses between them. If this works, it will successfully suggest there is an armed robber inside the cart. I was amazed at the audacity of this operation, as it would be completely derailed by not anticipating any number of possibilities. If nothing else, this is an idea which requires a sound understanding of human behavior.
It is interesting Matthews is only in interested in the challenge this poses and not in the money. That’s because he has the luxury of being from a wealthy family, prompting him to tell Moore that must be why the other man hates him. Moore: “No, I have other reasons.”
What Matthews doesn’t consider is Keith will become obsessed with the plan and strictly for the money. What Madison knows, but does not tell the others, is his friend was in the VA hospital after being discharged from the service for psychological issues. Keith is prone to violence, such as when he is barely prevented from beating a guy to death.
Madison is the luckiest person in the bunch, as he is the squeeze of Kim Novak’s singer. Like most such performances in this kind of thing, she lip-syncs over somebody else’s vocals. Still, presentation is more than half of the performance. After Novak say, “I want to get out of this singing dress”, Moore chimes in with “She’s right. That dress does sing on its own.” One interesting aspect of her character is she is reluctant to tie the knot with the enthusiastic Madison.
Something I found distracting is Madison and Matthews look so similar so much of the time that I would occasionally mistake one for the other, even when they’re in the same shot. Even their characters are so similar that Novak could be in a three-way with them and still claim she is monogamous. Then again, all the guys around their ages look rather similar in this picture, and all of them are White. If the fictitious university they attend had a motto, it would likely be “albus albus albus”.
If there is one character who really stands out, it is Moore, as this smartass gets the lion’s share of the good lines. He deserves his own Barlett’s. Consider his take on drinking: “That’s the problem with drinking. One drink makes you a new man, and then that new man needs a drink.” Then there’s his response to a simple “What’s the good word?” which leads to a tirade about the freshman he’s hazing: “They don’t make good words anymore. Don’t make good freshmen anymore. Mine had the audacity to make me brush my own teeth this morning.” He even has a good comeback to Keith’s silence: “What are you shutting up about?”
Five Against the House is above-average noir. I liked the central characters and heist. That fantastic mechanized parking garage nearly steals the show, especially when it returns in the climax of a third act in which the energy had been lagging. Yet it still doesn’t upstage this group of likable, if thinly-sketched, young people who even discuss the nature of the heist in an interesting manner, with Mathews saying it is a study in psychology and Moore countering it doesn’t matter what they call it. It is the kind of movie they used to call “crime dramas” before the term “film noir” was invented, but make no mistake, this is solidly noir.
Dir: Phil Karlson
Starring Guy Madison, Kim Novak, Brian Keith, Alvy Moore, William Conrad, Kerwin Matthews
Watched as part of Powerhouse/Indicator UK (region B) blu-ray box set Columbia Noir #2