Five college students - Madison, Novak, Keith, Moore and Mathews - team up and joke about a robbery of Harold's Club in Reno. It starts off as an intellectual prank, but soon ends up the real thing. Internal conflicts mount between Mathews (who planned the heist) and Madison (whose disapproval grows). The issue is eventually forced by Brian Keith, playing a violent and emotionally disturbed ex-G.I., named (aptly enough) Brick. The overly-stylised tensions result in an exciting climactic showdown.

Five Against the House is a taut caper thriller, based on a novel by Jack (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Time After Time) Finney. An early screen role for Kim Novak reveals her as a nightclub singer (curiously, her voice is dubbed). - Paul Harris

"Character and plot, and the tensions generated by both, were expertly juggled by writers Stirling Silliphant, John Barnwell (both of whom also produced for Dayle Productions) and William Bowers, working from a Good Housekeeping story by Jack Finney. They emerged with a gripping little thriller. The nifty direction was by Phil Karlson, who, when it came to laying on the suspense, doesn't miss a trick." - The Columbia Story

"Noir rules, other fiction drools." - James Ellroy