secondtake 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.

DKosty123 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.

thirdcavca-2 As it happens I was in this picture as an extra in the early spring of 1955. I was going to high school as a sophomore at Holy Cross Abbey in Cannon City Colo. at the time when a call came in for extras for a summer camp scene.This movie was filmed in and around the Cannon City area,Westcliffe and Royal Gorge. Broderick Crawford had a popular TV series at the time called Highway Patrol.This was one of Charles Bronson's earliest movies, he had just done House of Wax a year or two before.Reed Hadley also had a popular detective TV series at the time.

telegonus Rugged mid-fifties prison break flick with great cast,--Broderick Crawford, Ralph Meeker, Lon Chaney, Jr., Charles Bronson, Reed Hadley, Bill Bouchey and Roy Roberts--it oozes violence and cruelty, and is even today one tough, convincing little movie. Ralph Meeker is excellent as a cold-blooded killer known as 'the iceman", but Crawford has the film's best line when Meeker joins his prison cell: "The iceman cometh". Very watchable and outdoorsy, with fine work by a virile cast, it rather resembles stylistically Crawford's TV series Highway Patrol in its plain, police procedural take on the American western landscape of the fifties, with killers, like Commies, lurking behind every rock and tree. Strong stuff, and a worthy late entry in the prison escape genre.