Five Against The House (Phil Karlson, 1955)

Freshly traumatised Korean vets, bored at college and itching to get on with life, attempt a heist at the famous Harold’s Club Casino in Reno. Guy Madison, past the first bloom of youth but still gorgeous, stars. One of the most beautiful film stars in history, Gore Vidal’ favourite, he was also one of the stiffest, awkward and ill at ease. It amused me that the trailer advertises him as ‘Photoplay’s most promising actor of 1955’, over a decade after he made his first splash in SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (1944). It took him a long time to be promising and he never got good.

He comes particularly badly here as his antagonist is one of the most skilled and natural actors of this period, Brian Keith; and also in that his love interest is Kim Novak at her peak; beautiful, mysterious, weaving a spell of enchantment and hurt; her voluptuous body and beautiful face wrapped up moving as if through a cloud of sadness and melancholy. I can’t think of another movie star whose sex appeal is so intertwined with her sadness.  An undistinguished heist film but of interest for several reasons:

1. The on-location shooting, now of historical interest.

1. I was particularly fascinated by what must have seemed futuristic parking.

1. Kim Novak’s star entrance, one of two lovely numbers she does in the film with a soft voice to a slow beat.

1. A chance to see some of America’s best supporting actors at work, particularly Brian Keith and William Conrad.

I don’t want to make any great claims on its behalf, but I enjoyed it.

José Arroyo