***Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Noir Night-Brian Keith’s Five Against The House.

 

 

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Five Against The House, starring Guy Madison, Kim Novak, Brian Keith, Columbia Pictures, 1955

Come on, every guy, and maybe every gal too, wants to be the first, the number one at doing something. Come on as well that every guy, and every gal, from hunger who was not born with a silver spoon in his or her mouth, and maybe a few of those too, wants to make a big-time money score. Those two ideas, those two worthy ideas, are what drive the mid-1950s film noir under review, Five Against The House. And just for one minute the two ideas come together as a certain nefarious scheme almost makes the nut. But of course those of us who have been down the noir road before know in our bones that the scheme cannot possibly work in a cinematic world where “crime does not pay.”

Here is the skinny. Four college guys, law students, including two ex-Korean War buddies, Al (played by Guy Madison) and Brick who had saved Al’s life over there (played by Brian Keith), shades of Tennessee Williams’ Brick in Cat On A Hot-Tin Roof, just back from the rigors of ranch life in California where one of the guys’ father has a ranch stopped off at Harold’s Club in Reno on the way back to the greater rigors of college life. While there a career criminal type tried to rob the joint and got the slammer for his efforts. The lesson they learn from that event and from the mouth of the arresting officer is that no way in hell can anybody pull off that kind of caper in Reno casino land.

This where the two ideas, being first and being rich, merge with one of the guys devising a master plan to commit the perfect crime by grabbing a million cool ones from Harold’s with no gun play and no traces left. He doesn’t care about the dough since he comes from dough, just being first. Brick though, Brick from hunger, and Brick who took quite a beating over in Korea and had spent time at a VA hospital for what we would now call PTSD had riches idea, easy street ideas. And so the plan unfolds, with another roommate thrown in to help.

Problem was that the scheme needs four guys to work. That is where Al, who is head over heels over a townie and torch singer at a local night club, Kaye (played by Kim Novak with lip-synched singing), came in. Brick by hook or by crook brought Al in under false pretenses (and later to insure Al’s participation dragged Kaye in too). The caper naturally went off according to plan, Brick’s plan which involved actually keeping the dough and using some rough play with a gun if necessary. Of course no way that war-shattered, from hunger, and psychologically-scarred Brick was going to be able to keep the dough after he was confronted by Al who talked him into surrendering to the on-rushing police. Like I said crime does not pay in these noirs and here is example 256 for you.

P.S. the story line of a bunch of college students, law students to boot, would have been more believable if just for one minute any of these four comrades actually looked at a book but maybe I am just being picky. I won’t even mention that as law students they all should have known crime does not pay and avoided the caper. Maybe I am just being picky again.