211021-091555-397000 Five Against the House

Recently I tried to post a correction to the Cast List for 5 Against the House (1955).  I had noticed that John Zaremba, credited by the IMDb as being in the cast, was not actually in the film.  Checking the AFI site (which often has information IMDb does not), I found that the credits for Zaremba and four other actors in that film were erroneous, and that they had actually been transferred over from roles played by those actors in a completely different 1955 Columbia film, *Chicago Syndicate*.  I verified that the five character names from Chicago Syndicate were in fact duplicated on the IMDb 5 Against the House Cast list.  It of course makes no sense that five  characters from Chicago Syndicate would appear in a completely unrelated movie, 5 Against the House, so obviously the AFI note was correct.  Further, having just watched 5 Against the House, I knew that no characters of those names had appeared anywhere in the film.  I wrote this all up very carefully, and submitted it as a change, requesting the deletion of those five characters (and the corresponding actors) from the 5 Against the House cast list.  Here is what I wrote for the Zaremba entry:

"Neither the actor John Zaremba nor the character "Robert Fenton" is found in this film.  For confirmation of this, see the AFI (American Film Institute) explanation that Zaremba/Fenton (and four other actors and their characters) were erroneously imported from a *different* Columbia film of 1955, "Chicago Syndicate":  "The DV and HR reviews incorrectly include actors John Zaremba, George Brand, Mark Hanna, Carroll McComas and Hugh Sanders in the cast. The actors actually appeared in the 1955 Columbia release Chicago Syndicate."  See https://catalog.afi.com/Film/51499-5-AGAINSTTHEHOUSE?sid=b4acacde-e790-49ac-8617-33070e76447f&sr=12.384593&cp=1&pos=0.  For further confirmation of this, see the IMDb page for Chicago Syndicate, where all five of the actors/characters are listed:  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047934/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm.  So all five of the named actors, and their characters, must be deleted from the 5 Against the House cast list."

I submitted a similar paragraph (with only the actor/character name changed) for each of the five actor/characters who did *not* appear in 5 Against the House, yet are listed on the IMDb cast list.  My request to have those names deleted was denied, and I was told "More Evidence Required"!

What more possible evidence could there be than what I supplied?  The duplication of character names *from a completely unrelated movie* (Chicago Syndicate) was verifiable *from the IMDb's current credits* for those films.  The explanation of the error on the AFI was crystal-clear.  This alone is enough reason to remove the five names from the IMDb cast list.  I can add the additional reason that I had watched the film -- twice, pausing all the way through for character/actor checks -- the very night I made the submission -- and verified that none of those characters or actors appeared in the film, but of course my observation won't count for anything.  But my observation should not matter.  It's *obvious* that the same five characters wouldn't appear in two *completely unrelated films*, and it's obvious that the AFI explanation of the error (accidental importation of names/characters from one cast list to another in the film news journals of 1955) is the correct one.  Yet whoever handled my request decided that I needed more evidence.

What, may I ask, would count as sufficient evidence in this case?  I don't see that any more evidence is either possible or necessary.

I have suggested in this forum before that a better way of handling cast/character issues would be to have a pool of people, who specialize in particular periods, *discuss* all cast/character changes among themselves, and submit their consensus to IMDb.  For example, a group of 20 film fans who have watched thousands of films and TV shows from the 1950s and 1960s would quickly be able to come to consensus that John Zaremba (well-known to all fans of the period from Time Tunnel and various 1950s sci-fi films) is not in 5 Against the House, and neither is his supposed character on the IMDb list.  This consensus could then be reported to IMDb, and IMDb would then remove Zaremba from the cast list.  

For another example, suppose someone submits a cast/character list change request for Rosemary's Baby.  IMDb would immediately send out an automated invitation to a certain number of people, say, 20, or 30, randomly chosen but known for an IMDb record of past successful corrections, asking if they would serve on a "jury" to referee that particular cast change.  The invitation would include the admonition that to participate, one must have access to a full and uncut version of Rosemary's Baby and must be willing to go to the film and check the relevant spots.  They would have to reply within a certain time-frame, say, 72 hours, or their response would not be counted.  Then the IMDb staffer, in making the final decision, would have information from dyed-in-the-wool film fans, many of whom have extensive DVD collections of films and would be able to consult their copies of Rosemary's Baby before rendering a verdict.

The way it is now, isolated fans such as myself submit corrections to a single IMDb staffer, who in 99% of the cases has never seen the film being discussed and does not have a copy of the film at hand to check the claims, and in 99% of the cases does not know the classical Hollywood actors as well as the fan submitting the correction, then makes a judgment on some purely formal criterion, and accepts or vetoes the change accordingly.  That is not a good way of making a decision about cast/character lists.