What a beautiful movie!

Truly Dreadful Film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

The film was not that interesting for story but completely engaging as history. It documents the allure of Reno when it was the world's casino capitol. Some of the bits and pieces:-Harolds Club inside and out. Today the exterior mural is at the rodeo grounds between Reno and Sparks. The club itself is a vacant lot next to Harrahs. The interesting parking garage, scene of most of the final action, is also gone. -A Harolds Club billboard is passed on the drive from Midwestern to the heist.-University of Nevada Reno (Midwestern University in the film). Nice outdoor winter shots of buildings and Manzanita Lake. -The Union Pacific crossing on Virginia Street. Today the tracks are 20 feet below grade and pass under. In 1955 the line was a visible connection to the real world far away. The wall of accelerating passenger coaches effectively ends the heist.-Harold Smith. He has 2 lines and puts on his glasses to examine a slot machine while Guy Madison waits outside the vault. Smith was proud of his role in the film, and discusses it in his autobiography.All this is well documented in postcards, stills and old 8mm tourist film from back in the day. But this is the best quality view of Reno when it was still a collection of family gambling businesses that grew beyond anyone's expectations.

Somehow I mistakenly thought that this was the original version of 'Ocean's Eleven' from 2001, but that would actually be the film of the (duh) same name from 1960... no wonder this was a surprise, eh?Anyway, this is a wonderful heist film, though the heist isn't really the center of it. There's a long dramatic build up to it about a group of college friends who struggle (some more than others) with their current lives and concerns for their futures, with lots of dialogue, and it is - thank God - not crammed with superfluous music when one would pretty much expect it; something that occurs so much in more recent films - phooey!Then there is a great cast of (to me) unfamiliar faces, except for the amazing Kim Novak, who even gets to sing^ a few classy tunes - woof!'5 against the house' is really something else, maybe not for everyone - you should certainly not expect a lot of action - but it has a story that is original and gripping, although the (comedic) parts with the freshman student felt somewhat out of place. I really loved that use of that special kind of parking, too, by the bye!A big 8 out of 10; highly recommended!^ Oh, and Kim Novak didn't actually sing those songs as I found here on IMDb, but what the hey.

i watched that movie because of Kim Novak but I must write it's not one of her finest parts! why do they always forget "the legend of Lylah Clare" perhaps her finest latter days performance and screen third-rate thrillers like this one.First,how can we believe the male characters are students (Guy Madison was 33 at the time!!!) ??The psychological side (the bad guy who is a good one after all;it's not his fault,he is mentally ill))is minimal and the screen play predictable .If like me you are looking for a good Novak part ,you have to move on:her role is just a little more than decorative.This is a male thriller,but do not expect lots of thrills.

"Hornet's Nest" director Phil Karlson helmed many memorable films, including "Kansas City Confidential," "The Phenix City Story," "Walking Tall," "The Texas Rangers," "Key Witness" and "Frame Up," during his 31-year career, but his lame 1955 casino caper "5 Against the House," with Guy Madison and Kim Novak, doesn't qualify as one of those films. This 84-minute, black & white crime melodrama lacks substance, and the robbery itself is nothing to rhapsodize about in the greater scheme of heist movies. None of the usual characters that populate these dramas appears in this Columbia Pictures release. Essentially, four college age students—two Korean War veterans on the G.I. Bill and two roommates try to steal a million dollars from Harold's Club in Reno during a city-wide celebration. Indeed, they don't get away with the crime, but the initial plans that the mastermind concocted had little to do with getting away with the transgression. Karlson stages this modest crime story with his customary aplomb, but he is forced to stretch out the rather lackluster screenplay by "In the Heat of the Night" scenarist Stirling Silliphant, William Bowers of "The Gunfighter," and John Barnwell which was based on Jack Finney's magazine novel. Yes, this is the same Finney who wrote the immortal sci-fi classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The dialogue is pretty decent and there is one rather clever gag. Boredom serves as the stimulus for the crime. The heroes have just gone back to Midwestern University after spending a summer at work. Al Mercer (Guy Madison of "Till the End of Time") and Brick (Brian Keith of "Arrowhead") are attending college to obtain law degrees. Al and Brick served in the infantry in Korea, and Brick saved Al's life. Unfortunately, Brick came out of the war with a combat injury that makes him susceptible psychotic episodes. He nearly beats a younger man to death during an argument. This brief close-quarter, hand-to-hand combat scene is beautifully staged and "Women's Prison" lenser Lester White does a superb job with his pictorial compositions. Al and Brick are friends of Roy (Alvy Moore of the CBS-TV sitcom "Green Acres") and rich boy Ronnie (Kerwin Mathews of "Barquero") and they operate as a quartet. During their return journey to college, our protagonists stopover in Reno at Harold's Club and witness an attempted robbery. Actually, the authorities are on the verge of arresting Roy and Ronnie as accomplices of the anonymous thief (Frank Gerstle of "Between Heaven and Hell") because they appeared to be in on the crime. This incident gives Ronnie an idea for a 'foolproof' plan to rob the casino. He constructs a cart like those that the employees trundle into and out of the counting rooms. Essentially, he places a large but portable reel-to-reel tape player inside the cart and connects it to a concealed button in the handle so that it sounds as if there is a man hidden in the small compartment. They smuggle their cart into the casino during a celebration and coerce a casino employee, Eric Berg (William Conrad of "The Killers"), into helping them. Basically, Berg believes the heroes that there is a small man armed with a gun who will burst from the cart and start shooting if Berg doesn't comply with their orders. Complications arise from Brick's violent episode with another college student during a vicious fight and Al recommends that Brick check back into the hospital, but Brick refuses to go quietly.Meantime, Ronnie devises his plan to hold up Harold's Club, but the catch is that he will return the money. Once Brick gets wind of the crime, he has no desire to get the money back. While all of this is transpiring, Al has fallen in love with an initially reluctant Kay Greylek (sexy bombshell actress Kim Novak of "Pushover") who sings in a nightclub. Ronnie's plan requires four people and Al and Kay accompany them to Reno with no idea what is in store for them. Of course, everything works out in the end and nobody dies. Ronnie's plan works like a charm, but the police are on to them because Kay has contacted them. The heist takes place near the end of the action with about 15 minutes devoted to the actual crime. It appears that Karlson shot the action on location in Reno, and they showcase an interesting as well as elaborate car parking gantry that scoops up a vehicle with huge metal tusks, hoists it up vertically to a parking space in a high-rise garage and parks it. Motorists are not allowed to ride up in their cars. This gadget is more interesting than anything else in the film. What sets "5 Against the House" from most crime pictures of its day is the way that Karlson depicts the actual workings of the crime. Early on in the action, Ronnie buys a disposable car and trailer using cold cash so that nobody can trace the vehicles back to him. Earlier, the Production Code forbade the depiction of a crime because the censors feared that such a depiction might inspire impressionable viewers into attempting the crime. Naturally, our heroes are good kids. Brick cannot help himself and the police capture him in the garage after Al talks him down. The actual crime itself with the tape player in the cart is rather far-fetched, but even this crime seems like it foreshadows the far more elaborate crime that Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin orchestrated in director Lewis Milestone's "Ocean's Eleven." Karlson and his scenarists provide us with a glimpse of casino security; we see the guards roaming the catwalks in the gambling house and peering through slots over the gaming and cashier areas that are concealed behind mirrors. Altogether, "5 Against the House" never generates much in the way of either momentum or tension until the commission of the crime. You won't feel your palms getting sweaty or your mouth dry in anticipation of the danger involved.