Big House, U.S.A (1955)

disgusting, overrated, pointless

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

One of the dirtiest, grittiest crime noirs to come out of the 1950s. It's about a man, Jerry Barker, that kidnaps a sick child, holds him hostage and asks the father for ransom money for the safe return of the child. Barker gets his money but the boy ends up dead and Barker in prison. He became known as The Ice Man in the news papers and well hated in prison for killing a child. Barker's troubles become worse inside the penitentiary.Great casting, superb acting, cinematography is beautiful and a story that can leave you on the edge of your seat. A worthwhile crime-prison film to watch. It is really rough at times but a darn good film. Great to see this one again! 9/10

Big House USA sounds like a prison picture, but only in part of the film is the setting a maximum security prison. There is the part how Ralph Meeker got there and the last part about his escape with several other solid citizens, residents of Big House USA.A young boy with one rich father is kidnapped by Meeker and dies while in his custody. Not that he killed him, but kidnapping alone as per the Lindbergh law gets him the gas chamber. Father Willis Bouchey pays the ransom, but gets no child back.Meeker is arrested, but all he's charged with is extortion, without a body dead or alive, the authorities can do no more. But with the reputation as a child killer, Meeker's not going to be a popular guy even in the maximum security federal penitentiary he's sent.But cell-mate Broderick Crawford has other ideas about the ransom money never recovered and buried in a national park. He and confederates Lon Chaney, Jr., William Talman, and Charles Bronson escape with Meeker. They had an escape plan in the works already, a quite ingenious one which costs another prisoner his life during a dry run.A chance to see all these guys in a film is never to be passed up. Crawford we're told is a smart guy. Personally if he were that smart he'd have realized that the authorities would know full well he was heading for the park and go anywhere else. But greed overtakes intelligence.There's also a nice role here for Felicia Farr as Meeker's accomplice. FBI man Reed Hadley and chief forest ranger Roy Roberts represent the law. Big House USA spends more time in the wide open spaces than in a maximum security prison. Still it's a tight little noir film with a fine cast of players.

Big House U.S.A. (1955)This is quite a surprise. At first you are lulled into thinking we're in an ordinary crime drama: a rich kid is kidnapped from a Colorado mountain summer camp. A ransom is demanded, the kidnapper, working alone, is caught for a different crime and thrown in jail. All of this takes awhile to happen and is pretty interesting, especially set out in the big landscape and bright air of the Rockies.But then our main character finds himself in a jail cell with some hardened thugs. This is where any movie lover will sit up. Listen to the cast of characters. Broderick Crawford, who plays loud and brash characters as good as anyone, and who is sharp as a whip here, the gangleader and intellectual.Ralph Meeker, the man who played Mike Hammer in the following year's "Kiss Me Deadly" and is a good hardened criminal.William Talman, most memorable in Ida Lupino's "The Hitchhiker" as the sinister kidnapper with one eye which stayed open even when he slept, and here plays an equally cold and brutal type.Lon Chaney (this would be Lon Chaney Jr. of course) who continued his career are "Wolfman" in roles demanding his broad nice guy quality that here gets twisted since he's also a thug.Charles Bronson, yes, whose big fame was still ahead ("Magnificent Seven" and "The Great Escape") and who appears here without his shirt on, of course (he's ripped).The rest of the movie follows these men as they escape, audaciously, and begin to rip into each other in an effort to find the hidden ransom money.There are a few stumbles and improbable turns here, but it's all done with such high stakes energy it really works. The one wet blanket on the whole thing is the overlay the producers add to the plot giving credit to the police forces who intrepidly solve the crime (the F.B.I. in particular), almost as if a government mandate. But never mind the drawbacks. If you watch this for its inventive energy and cast of characters, you'll be amazed. I'd watch it twice, even with the sometimes clunky direction. It's that fun.

***SPOILERS*** Even though the movie "Big House U.S.A" runs for a scant 83 minutes it seems like well over two hours watching it and all the side plots that's in it. In fact we never get to see the big man or top star Braderick Crawford, the psycho as well as wimpy sadist killer Rollo Lamar, until almost halfway into the film.The story starts with good natured fisherman Jerry Baker, Ralph Meeker, giving a hand to this runaway boy Danny Lambert, Peter J. Votrian, who checked out of camp when he was about to be giving an injection for his serious asthma condition. As it turned Baker was on to little Danny in that his dad Mr. Lambert, Willis Bouchey, being one of the riches men in the state of Colorado. Holding little Danny hostage for a ransom of $200,000.00 Baker makes the mistake in leaving the kid alone in this dilapidate fire tower in the woods. Trying to escape Danny falls to his death and with that Baker if caught faces the death penalty for, a federal charge, kidnap/murder.Caught by the FBI lead by Special Agent James Madden, Reed Hadley, Baker being a step ahead of the law had disposed of Danny's body and hid the ransom money where he only faced and got a one to five year sentence at the top security Cascaville prison. It's behind bars that Baker got involved, since he had no choice in the matter, with his cell-mates who were serving time for a slew of multiple murders all across the country. Headed by the brains of the outfit Rollo Lamar Baker is forced to break out of jail with Rollo and his fellow cell-mates the worst bunch of convicts in the entire prison system. It's not that Rollo liked Baker but the fact that Baker knew where he stashed the $200,000.00 ransom money was worth saving his life; That's until Rollo got his hands on that cash and then he's history!Worth watching just to see future action star Charles Bronson all pumped up, the guy would give Arnold Schwartznegger a run for his money in a body building contest, and crazy with future District Attorney Berger, William Talman, in the Perry Mason TV show as, this really takes the cake, William "Machine Gun" Mason! In fact three years later Charles Bronson would get the lead role as the real, whom Talman's character was obviously based on, Machine Gun Kelly.P.S There's also horror star Lon Cheney Jr. as the dim witted and lovable convicted murderer Lenny Alamo Smith. It fact it was Lenny that Lon Chaney played in the 1939 film "Of Mice & Men" that made him a star. And talking about Lenny in "Of Mice & Men" it was non-other then Broderick Crawford who originated the role on Broadway three years earlier!