5 Against the House (1955): A Thanksgiving Film Noir

Outside of the few film noirs set at Christmas, there aren't many film noirs set at a specific holiday. A notable exception is 5 Against the House (1955). The movie unfolds over Thanksgiving, and it can be argued that the holiday plays a large role in the plot. It certainly makes 5 Against the House (1955) unique among both film noirs and movies set at Thanksgiving. 

5 Against the House (1955) centres on four World War II veterans attending college on the G.I. Bill: Al Mercer (Guy Madison), Brick (Brian Keith), Ronnie (Kerwin Matthews), and Roy (Alvy Moore). Al's girlfriend is singer Kay Greylek (Kim Novack, with her singing voice dubbed by Jo Ann Greer). After a visit to Harold's Club Casino in Reno, Nevada, Ronnie becomes fascinated by the idea of robbing the casino. Ronnie's planned heist unfolds over Thanksgiving break. He then enlists his friends to help. 

5 Against the House (1955) was based on the novel of the same name by Jack Finney, which was serialized from July to September 1951 in Good Housekeeping. Stirling Silliphant got an option on the novel for United Artists. Initially, former Warner Bros. animator and director of such films as Son of Paleface (1952) and Red Garters (1954) Frank Tashlin was set to direct, with his wife Mary Costa playing the female lead. Eventually, Frank Tashlin dropped out of the project, along with his wife. Peter Godfrey, who had directed the classic Christmas in Connecticut (1945), was then picked up as the director. At some point, the project also moved from United Artists to Columbia.  As of October 1954, negotiations were underway to cast Milly Vitale as the female lead with  Guy Madison, Alvy Moore, Roddy McDowall and Robert Horton. The project changed directors again, with Phil Karlson, who directed Kansas City Confidential (1942), set to direct. As to the cast, Milly Vitale was replaced by Kim Novack, while Roddy McDowall and Robert Horton were replaced by Kerwin Matthews and Brian Keith. It was Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia, who insisted on the casting of Kim Novak. who had plans for the young actress to succeed their reigning star, Rita Hayworth.

As might be expected, much of 5 Against the House (1955) was shot in Reno, with a good deal of the movie unfolding in Harold's Club Casino itself. University of Nevada-Reno doubles as the college that the veterans are attending, while Virginia Street (with the Reno Arch in full view) is seen in the film's opening. Lake Tahoe also appears in the film. Oddly enough, the Desert Spa in Las Vegas also appears in the film As might be expected, many of the interiors were shot at Columbia/Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood.

Despite being set at Thanksgiving, 5 Against the House (1955) was released in the spring. A. H. Weller The New York Times gave the film a good review, although reviews elsewhere were a bit more critical. The movie gave Kim Novak her first major role, and did well enough that the media did take notice of her. 

Youngsters watching 5 Against the House (1955) today might be puzzled by the fact that while most of the movie unfolds over Thanksgiving weekend, there are no Christmas decorations in sight. In 1955, most businesses did not decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving. Indeed, I seem to remember this was still the norm when I was growing up in the 1970s. This is in contrast to Ocean's 11 (1960), which is set on New Year's Eve when Christmas decorations are still evidence. Quite simply, back in the day business generally took their Christmas decorations down after New Year's Day, not the day after Christmas.

While 5 Against the House (1955) was an early film for Kim Novak, features an unusual premise, and is one of the few film noirs set at Thanksgiving, it is not the most respected movie out there. At IMDB, it is only rated 5.9 out of 10, which is terribly low for that site. At Rotten Tomatoes, it has an audience rating of only 25%., although notably the two critics who have reviews there give it positive marks. Personally, I am not sure why 5 Against the House (1955) gets bad marks from so many viewers. Okay, it is not a perfect film. Some of the performances could be better and the plot is a bit far-fetched and in one respect the film is dated (I can't reveal how without major spoilers), but 5 Against the House (1955) does not lack for excitement and Phil Karlson's direction is solid. At any rate, if someone wants to watch a Thanksgiving movie that is not Miracle on 34th Street (1947) or Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), then 5 Against the House could provide for a fun evening. 

Cartoons on Friday Morning the Day After Thanksgiving

As usual on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving, I am feeling a bit sluggish. It doesn't help that yesterday's Thanksgiving was a bit more exciting than usual. My brother is taking care of a cat for a friend and it was yesterday the cat decided to have her kittens under my desk. We got her moved to a much nicer box later.

Anyway, I was thinking about the day after Thanksgiving when I was a kid. In those days it was not commonly known as "Black Friday"yet, although a the day was counted as the start of the holiday shopping season and many people did holiday shopping that day. As a kid I primarily associated the day after Thanksgiving with cartoons that usually aired on Saturday morning airing on Friday morning. 

For some reason I remember CBS airing cartoons on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving, although internet searches reveals no evidence that they ever did. I even checked Newspapers.Com, but found nothing there either. It seems most newspaper TV listings back in the day tended to ignore the daytime television schedule. Anyway, while CBS may or may not have aired cartoons on the Friday after Thanksgiving, ABC apparently did. Dan Brady on his blog Brady's  Bunch of Lorain County Nostalgia has a post on the cartons aired by ABC on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving. TVParty also has an article on the cartons aired by ABC the day after Thanksgiving.

According to TVParty, ABC began the tradition of airing Saturday morning cartoons on the Friday after Thanksgiving around 1966. Among the cartoons that ABC aired on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving were such classics as Hoppity Hooper, The Beatles, The Fantastic Four, and Spider-Man. In 1966, we didn't have an ABC affiliate and I was a still a baby, so I wouldn't remember it anyway, but I do remember some of the cartoons that aired on ABC on the day after Thanksgiving in the Seventies, including Jackson 6, Kid Power, The Funky Phantom, Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show, and others. 

I am not sure when ABC stopped showing cartoons on the day after Thanksgiving, but I am thinking it was in the late Seventies or early Eighties. I don't remember them airing at all as an adult. Anyway, I guess I will have to continue searching old TV listings for them. 

Happy Thanksgiving 2025

I think most people these days recognize the fact that many Native Americans find the holiday of Thanksgiving objectionable. After all,  the Wampanoag, who legend has it dined with the Pilgrims at the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving celebration, suffered greatly for their contact with the British colonists. There are then those Native Americans who view Thanksgiving as a celebration of the genocide of Native Americans at the hands of European settlers and observe it as a day of mourning. As I see it, the problem with Thanksgiving is that its mythology has traditionally been tied to that of the Thanksgiving celebrated by the Pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts. That mythology is false on many levels, the least of which is the fact that the Thanksgiving celebrated by the Pilgrims was not the first Thanksgiving celebration in North America by a long shot. Indeed, various Native American tribes had their own Thanksgivings. The Seneca have Thanksgiving rituals that last four days.

For me then, the answer is not to do away with the holiday of Thanksgiving, but to divorce it from the imagery of the Pilgrims. We should stop celebrating the Pilgrims, who ultimately brought grief to the Wampanoag. Ultimately, my point of view on the holiday is best expressed by Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, who said of the holiday, "We celebrate Thanksgiving along with the rest of America, maybe in different ways and for different reasons. Despite everything that's happened to us since we fed the Pilgrims, we still have our language, our culture, our distinct social system. Even in a nuclear age, we still have a tribal people." I think it is important to set aside a day to express gratitude. We just have to make sure that we are not celebrating genocide when we do so.

Keeping this in mind, I will observe Thanksgiving with the usual vintage Hollywood pictures I usually do on A Shroud of Thoughts

First up is Janet Leigh, who is preparing her turkey.

Anne Francis apparently prefers riding turkeys to cooking them!

Lena Horne is busy in the kitchen preparing her Thanksgiving dinner.

Fay Webb is serving her turkey. 

While Lucy Marlowe is walking a turkey!

 And it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without Ann Miller!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Chief Dan George: Indigenous Pioneer

Even into the Seventies it was not unusual for people of other ethnicities to play people Indigenous to North America.  For this and other reasons, when I was growing up, I would take notice when Chief Dan George was on-screen. Unlike Syrian-born Michael Ansara or German-born Henry Brandon, Chief Dan George actually was Indigenous. Indeed, he was  even a a chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, a nation of Coast Salish peoples in Canada, from 1951 to 1963. 

What makes Chief Dan George even more remarkable is that he was 60 years old when he began his acting career. He was born  Geswanouth Slahoot in Tsleil-Waututh, North Vancouver, British Columbia on July 24, 1899. His original name in English was Dan Slaholt, but his surname was changed to George when he was enrolled in a residential school when he was 5 years old. Before going into acting, he worked a number of different jobs, including longshoreman, logger, school bus driver, and construction worker.

It was in 1960, when he was sixty years old, that Chief Dan George took his first acting job. It was on the CBC drama series Cariboo Country. On the show, the show he played Ol' Antoine, a chief of the  Chilcotin people. Cariboo Country would not be the the last time that Chief Dan George played Ol' Antoine. It was in 1965 that Paul St. Pierre, the creator of Cariboo Country, began adapting some the episodes he had written for the show as novels. The novel Breaking Smith's Quarter Horse was adapted by Walt Disney Productions as  the movie Smith! in 1969. The cast would be entirely different from that of the TV show Cariboo Country except for one actor, Chief Dan George as Ol' Antoine. 

Although he is now probably most familiar to audiences for his movies, Cariboo Country would not be the last work in television that Chief Dan George did. He made several guest appearances on Canadian and American TV shows. In the episode "Cougar Hunter" of The Littlest Hobo, he was one of a group of First Nations people who adopted the dog of the show's title. On The High Chaparral, in the episode "Apache Trust,"  he played  Chief Morales, a Apache chief anxious to prove that the Apache did not steal a shipment of Army rifles.  In the Bonanza episode "Warbonnet," he played Red Cloud, a Native American chief who want to get his stolen warbonnet back from a former U.S Calvary officer. Chief Dan George's last television role was as the recurring character Chief Moses Charlie on the comedy drama The Beachcombers, a show often counted among the greatest Canadian shows ever made.

While Chief Dan George did a good deal of television, he may be best known today for his movie roles. In fact, Chief Dan George was the first Indigenous North American actor to ever be nominated for an Academy Award. It was for his role as Old Lodge Skins in Little Big Man (1970). He won both the New York Film Critics Circle Award and National Society of Film Critics Award for Supporting Actor for the film, as well as the Laurel Award for Best Supporting Performance, Male. Beyond Little Big Man (1970), Chief Dan George's best-known role may be Lone Watie in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), a Cherokee man who finds himself travelling with Josey (Clint Eastwood). In the movie Harry and Tonto (1974), he played Sam Twofeathers, who is in prison for the first time in his life for having urinated in public. In the comedy Americathon (1979), Chief Dan George played Sam Birdwater, a billionaire and the leader of a Native American cartel who must bail a bankrupt United States government out. 

In addition to acting, Chief Dan George was also a poet. He wrote the poetry collection  My Heart Soars, published in 1974, and My Spirit Soars, posthumous published in 1983. Chief Dan George was also a musician, and played bass fiddle. 

Chief Dan George died on September 23, 1981, at the age of 82. He left behind s legacy that still being felt to this day. Chief Dan George eschewed playing stereotypes, and insisted on playing sympathetic roles. If we do not see such Indigenous stereotypes as the hostile Native American "savage," we owe a good deal to Chief Dan George. Chief Dan George used his position as an actor, public speaker, and poet to advocate for the Indigenous peoples of North America. Indeed, for the Centennial of Canada in 1967 he delivered the Lament of Confederation, a powerful attack on the effect colonization has had on the Native peoples of Canada. Chief Dan George was an enormous talent and an advocate for his fellow Indigenous people.

"The Carnival is Over" by The Seekers

I have felt under the weather the past few days. The fact that it has been cloudy and foggy for the past week has not helped. Anyway, it was 60 years ago today that The Seekers hit no. 1 on the UK singles chart with "The Carnival is Over." I will just leave you with a video of the song itself. I wish I could identify the source, but whoever posted it to YouTube didn't do so.