Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good start, but then it gets ruined

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

***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!

This film is not the best of it's genre. It is like a low budget version of the 1950's Dragnet series. The cast is something else.Broderirck Crawford, William Talman, a young Charles Bronson, & Lon Chaney Jr make interesting cell mates in a maximum security island prison. When the Ice Man joins them, they hatch an escape plot involving his ransom money. Like Dragnet, in this movie, the police appear to be a lot smarter than the crooks/murderers/thieves.This could have been better but it is obvious that this is a low budget thriller. The acting talent only gets an average script to work with. While the film is based on fact, it does not quite rise to the level of a great film. For those who like the familiar faces it is OK. It is fictionally based upon a real incident. Only the names were changed to protect the guilty, or is that innocent? Actually, the story is good enough to involve the viewer, but it does not become a must see movie.

The film begins with a little boy getting lost while at summer camp. Ralph Meeker finds the boy and pretends to be helping him, but actually is intent on kidnapping him and holding him for a huge ransom. Unfortunately, the kid dies while in his care but Meeker is an animal and STILL proceeds to get the money and then tries to skip town. However, the cold and calculating killer is caught and sent to prison--but unfortunately, all they can prove is that he extorted the money--not that he had anything to do with the boy's disappearance.This is sort of like a prison movie merged with a Film Noir flick. That's because much of the beginning and ending of the film is set outside prison and its style throughout was rather Noir inspired--with a format much like an episode of DRAGNET (the bloodier 1950s version, not the late 60s incarnation). However, it did lack some of the great Noir camera-work and lighting as well as the cool Noir lingo--but it still succeeded in telling a great story. What was definitely Noir was the unrelentingly awful and brutal nature of the film--a plus for Noir fans. Now I hate violent and bloody films, but this one was a bit more restrained but still very shocking for a 1950s audience--featuring some of the most brutal plot elements of the decade (tossing a child's body off a cliff, burning a corpse with a blowtorch to confuse in the identification of another corpse and the scene with the escaped prisoner who is scalded to death). Because of all this, the film was above all else, realistic and shocking--much of it due to the excellent script, straight-forward acting and a few excellent and unexpected plot twists.By the way, this is one of the earliest films in which Charles Bronson appears with this name (previously, he'd been billed as "Charlie Buchinsky"). When he takes his shirt off in the film, take a look at how muscle-bound he was--I sure would have hated to have tangled with him!! In his prime, he might have been the most buff actor in Hollywood history who DIDN'T suck down steroids (and, consequently, had minuscule testicles from this drug).

It's "The F.B.I." starring Reed Hadley, with an all-star guest cast! The film begins with an accidental (convenient?) kidnapping, which leads to one thing, and another - which doesn't really indicate the main story, which is a "Big House, U.S.A." prison break story. The story is very improbable, to say the least. It's like a TV show, only more "violent" (for the times).BUT - the cast is a trip! Picture this: Ralph Meeker is sent to prison; his cell-mates are the following criminals: Broderick Crawford, Lon Chaney Jr., Charles Bronson (reading a "Muscle" magazine!), and William Talman (reading a "Detective" magazine!). Honest! You should know that, an early scene reveals what happens to the "missing" boy, answering the ending "voiceover." If you don't want to have that hanging, don't miss the opening scenes between the "Iceman" and the boy (Peter Votrian doing well as a runaway asthmatic). *** Big House, U.S.A. (1955) Howard W. Koch ~ Broderick Crawford, Ralph Meeker, Reed Hadley