5 Against The House is a pretty good heist film from 1955. It's got a good cast, Brian Keith, Kim Novak, Guy Madison, Kerwin Mathews, Alvy Moore and William Conrad. It's based on a magazine story by Jack Finney. His next story to be made into a movie was Invasion Of The Body Snatchers in 1956. The screenplay was written by Stirling Silliphant, William Bowers and John Barnwell with an uncredited Frank Tashlin helping out. Phil Karlson is the director. Phil directed about 50 films but I've only seen The Big Cat, Kansas City Confidental, Kid Galahad, Alexander The Great (with William Shattner), Ride The Wild Surf (uncredited), The Silencers and The Wrecking Crew. The last two are my favorites of his work, they are two of the four Dean Martin Matt Helm series.
5 Against The House is about some college students that are having a bit of a break in Reno. Two of them get swept up in a robbery and released. Kerwin starts to develop plans to rob the casino, return the money, and get something from that, other than jail. I felt his idea that they wouldn't be arrested if they robbed the place and returned the money wouldn't really work well in the real world. He starts the works going and gets Brian and Alvy in on the plan. They need a fourth guy and trick Guy into going along for the weekend. When he finds out about the robbery, Guy's not interested, but before they can go home, Brian pulls a gun and the robbery is on. It all goes downhill from there. Brian is a Korean War vet with PTSD and that's going to complicate things. It all gets sorted out at the end. It's got a decent script and the whole PTSD thing is petty timely. Worth having a look at.
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