5 Against the House is a 1955 American heist film directed by Phil Karlson and starring Guy Madison, Kim Novak, Brian Keith and William Conrad.

Brick, a war veteran battling post-traumatic stress disorder, fights another student and experiences a dissociative psychotic episode.

The day before the robbery, Al proposes to Kay, and they join the other men on a return trip to Reno in order to marry quickly.

In disguise, Brick, Ronnie and Al assimilate into the crowd and detain casino employee Eric Berg, whom they threaten with death unless he follows their instructions.

Hidden inside the cart is a tape recorder with prerecorded messages that can be played at the push of a secret button to convince Berg that the accomplice is real.

By October 1954, negotiations were under way at Columbia with Peter Godfrey to direct and Milly Vitale to star alongside Guy Madison, Alvy Moore, Roddy McDowall and Robert Horton.

[3] Eventually Vitale, McDowall and Horton withdrew, and some parts were taken by contract Columbia players such as Kim Novak and Kerwin Mathews.

"[2] In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic A. H. Weiler wrote: "[B]risk direction, crisp, idiomatic and truly comic dialogue and a story line that suffers only from some surface characterizations make these 'Five Against the House' absorbing crew.

Although their motivations would appear to be somewhat fragile, director Phil Karlson has given his melodrama mounting tension as the hold-up plan is unfolded and suddenly builds from a theoretical challenge to frightening reality.

The set includes film introductions and commentaries by directors Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann and Christopher Nolan as well as authors Eddie Muller and James Ellroy.