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The story begins with a lost boy, a kidnapping, a ransom as extortionist RALPH MEEKER takes advantage of a situation which led to the death of the boy. The F.B.I. is soon on the case when the boy's father reports his disappearance. Meeker is sent to an island prison to serve a sentence as an extortionist who has $200,000 hidden somewhere.

He's thrown in with some hardened criminal types--CHARLES BRONSON, BRODERICK CRAWFORD, LON CHANEY, JR.--labeled "the Iceman" because of his cool demeanor and icy gaze. Crawford has one of the film's best lines: "Well, the iceman cometh." Since no prison drama would be complete without an escape plan being hatched, BIG HOUSE U.S.A. is no exception. The suspense lies mainly in the survival of Meeker who is known as the most hated man in prison because he harmed a boy. Crawford devises an escape plan that includes Meeker, "the goose that laid the golden egg", so he can share the hidden loot with them. Of course, it's a crime doesn't pay melodrama, so in the end all their best laid plans go awry.

Nice outdoor photography in Royal Gorge Park, Colorado, for the rugged scenes in the finale.

Summing up: Well worth your time--interesting and gritty.

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).

The early 1950's witnessed a number of high profile kidnappings of wealthy offspring, the most notorious being the Greenlease grab in Kansas City for which the perpetrators were executed and the arresting detectives jailed for stealing the ransom money! It's not surprising that these headlines eventually worked their way into the movies. And a good little kidnapping and prison film this is.

Big House USA benefits greatly from on-location photography in the scenic foothills of south-central Colorado, near the state penitentiary in Canon City where the prison scenes were filmed. The producers had the good sense to make the most of this unusual backdrop to a story line that is in many ways exciting but unexceptional. ( The only real drawback-- the underwater scenes of the prison escape, which appear to have been shot in a neighbor's backyard pool. The phony plants even bounce off the bottom as swimmers go by! Where was quality control on this one.)

The producers also hired an outstanding cast of has-beens (Crawford and Chaney), up & comers (Bronson, Meeker, and Farr), along with the stentorian voiced Reed Hadley as the long arm of the law, and Peter Votrian, an appropriately sickly looking kid whose whiney demeanor could make you think twice about becoming a parent. The result, all in all, is a very watchable 90 minutes of cops vs. robbers and cons vs. screws. Then too, no movie from this period that features the bug-eyed William Talman should be passed up.

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.

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.

A 1955 docudrama of a kidnapping gone wrong & the man who tried to make it happen. When an asthmatic kid goes missing in a national park, a crooked opportunist hears of this & tries to milk the situation by collecting ransom from his distraught father. Little does all concerned know that the poor boy would fall to his death from an elevated cabin which he escaped from, only for the kidnapper, played by Ralph Meeker, to toss his body into a forest canyon below. The FBI is called in & they capture Meeker sending him to jail w/o getting the particulars of the crime (Meeker is dubbed the Iceman for his reticence in not divulging any information). Once in stir, he meets up w/a group of convicts (Charles Bronson, Broderick Crawford, Lon Chaney, Jr. & William Talman make up some of this unit) looking to break out of prison w/the remaining ransom money (which Meeker stashed) used as a boon to keep himself alive during the escape which goes off w/o a hitch w/some of the team being killed along the way until the law finally catches up w/them back at the park. A great first half of the film gets lost in the second (almost feeling like two separate narratives which don't congeal in this 90 minutes affair!) w/a lot of the story beats sped along just to reach the end credits but I'd still recommend it for the terse first 45 minutes as the kidnapping & aftermath is thrilling & heartbreaking. Also starring Felicia Farr (she was married to Jack Lemmon) as one of Meeker's helpers, Stafford Repp (Chief O'Hara from TV's Batman) as the prison warden & William Boyett (from Adam 12) as a park ranger.

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.

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.

Big House, U.S.A. is directed by Howard W. Koch and written by John C. Higgins, George George and George Slavin. It stars Broderick Crawford, Ralph Meeker, Reed Hadley, William Talman, Lon Chaney Jr., Charles Bronson and Felicia Farr. Music is by Paul Dunlap and cinematography by Gordon Avil.

A Kidnap, A Ransom and A Prison Break = Powder Keg.

Out of Bel-Air Productions, Big House, U.S.A. is a relentlessly tough and gritty picture. Beginning with the kidnapping of a young boy from a country camp, Howard Koch's film has no intentions of making you feel good about things. Deaths do occur and we feel the impact wholesale, tactics and actions perpetrated by the bad guys in the play punch the gut, while the finale, if somewhat expected in the scheme of good versus bad classic movies, still leaves a chill that is hard to shake off.

Split into two halves, we first observe the kidnap and ransom part of the story, then for the second part we enter prison where we become cell mates with five tough muthas. Crawford, Chaney, Meeker, Bronson and Talman, it's a roll call of macho nastiness unfurled by character actors worthy of the Big House surroundings. The locations play a big part in the pervading sense of doom that hangs over proceedings, Cascabel Island Prison (really McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary) is every bit as grim as you would expect it to be, and the stunning vistas of Royal Gorge in Colorado proves to be a foreboding backdrop for much of the picture.

Although it sadly lacks chiaroscuro photography, something which would have been perfect for this movie and elevated it to the standard of Brute Force and Riot in Cell Block 11, Avil's photography still has the requisite starkness about it. While Dunlap scores it with escalating menace. Not all the performances are top draw, more so on the good guy side of the fence, and some characters such as Chaney's Alamo Smith don't get nearly enough lines to spit, but this is still one bad boy of an experience and recommended to fans of old black and white crims and coppers movies. 8/10

Prison breakout films constituted a fairly common genre in Hollywood, although this one differs from most of the others with its other unrelated yet important plot complications. But Big House, U. S. A. Will remain a special item for consideration because of one of its unusual casting features.

The leader of the breakout gang is played by Broderick Crawford, and the role of one of his henchmen is portrayed by Lon Chaney, Jr. Several years earlier, these two actors were closely associated with the role of Lennie, the slow-witted giant (who had a fondness for petting rabbits) in John Steinbeck's classic Of Mice and Men. The novel was subsequently transformed into a successful play and in 1937---it appeared on Broadway with Crawford creating the original Lennie character on the stage. However, when the play was turned into a major motion picture in 1939 directed by Lewis Milestone, Crawford was bypassed and instead the part of Lennie was offered to Chaney. Both the play and film were well received by the critics and public, and the movie got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture of the Year---only to lose to Gone with the Wind.

Did this history have any effect on their performances in Big House, U. S. A.? Such is not evident from a viewing of the film. While Crawford lost the movie part of Lennie to Chaney, he ended up having the more successful film career---appearing as the male lead in both the Oscar nominated original version of the hit play Born Yesterday as well as earning the Oscar winning Best Actor award for All the King's Men one year earlier. Chaney continued to have a busy life as a popular character actor in many Hollywood films until his death in 1973, but he was never again offered a prestige part similar to his earlier Lennie role or like those mentioned that were given to Crawford. Ironically, Crawford got the Born Yesterday role instead of the equally well known actor who originated the part on Broadway---Paul Douglas

As for the Big House film, it is interesting, tough and often brutal. Its primary interest to us today is focused on the stellar cast---with a particular reference to the Crawford-Chaney back story. It is certainly unique.

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

At camp, little Danny Lambert has an asthma attack. The nurse tries to give him a shot but he runs off into the woods. Jerry "The Iceman" Barker (Ralph Meeker) finds him and kidnaps him for ransom. Jerry gets $200k from his wealthy father. The boy dies in an accident and Jerry buries the ransom money. He is caught by FBI Agent James Madden and sent to the Big House. Without the boy's body, he could only be convicted of extortion. They need to break him and place him in a cell with four hardened lifers; William 'Machine Gun' Mason (William Talman), Alamo Smith (Lon Chaney Jr.), Benny Kelly (Charles Bronson), and Rollo Lamar (Broderick Crawford).

The kidnapping part could have been something intense but it's all done in a matter-of-fact manner. I also don't like the narration which is a relic of this era. The father looks too old. He's 50 going on 60. A younger father could exaggerate his flustered mannerisms. The first part could have been better and quite frankly, it could have been cut out for the most part. The prison part gets interesting with the addition of these great actors. I wouldn't mind expanding that section. All in all, it's an intriguing crime drama and prison drama.

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

A ripped-from-the-headlines, cheap and seemingly simple abduction movie turns into quite the twisted story - meanwhile the kidnapper (Ralph Meeker) is caught and gets shanghaied into a prison break by unusual means - eventually heading back towards the scene of the original crime. After a humdrum start, things get more intriguing once Broderick Crawford and the other jailbirds appear. Throughout the story, the monotonous tones of the FBI procedural narrator inject themselves into the proceedings slightly jarringly as do some brutal scenes of violence (or implied violence). This B-movie, with its overall variety of styles, action, and locales, a slightly-above-average score, plus the familiar faces and tough-guy acting from some noir stalwarts like Ralph Meeker, Broderick Crawford and William Talman, satisfies quite well by the end. A solid flick.

Unintentional riot about a stony-faced extortionist (Ralph Meeker) arrested and copping a plea bargain with the courts, ending up in an impenetrable prison. Meeker's link to the kidnapping/disappearance of a child makes him quite unpopular with his cell-mates (including Charles Bronson, pumped up and perusing muscle magazines); fortunately for Ralph, this cell-block gang--led by a wily but not quite brutish Broderick Crawford--already have a break-out plan in the works. Film features the kind of "sinister", super-grave voice-over narration later popularized on the "Dragnet" TV show. Reviewers point out how ahead of its time the brutality was, and it's true that one killing is a bit shocking. However the rest of the picture is so low-budget (and drowsily low-key) that one begins to laugh out of sheer restlessness. The frenzied finale picks up some of the slack, ending on a jaw-dropping note. ** from ****

1955's "Big House, U. S. A." sounds like it might be spoofing the old prison pictures from prior decades, but don't let such a sadly generic title put you off from a bleak noir that deserves more than its ongoing obscurity. On location shooting at Royal Gorge Park in Colorado adds authenticity to a documentary-style account of an asthmatic boy reported lost in the wilderness, and the successful attempt by kidnapper Jerry Barker (Ralph Meeker) to blackmail $200,000 from his distraught father (Willis B. Bouchey), only to see the lad fall to an accidental death, Barker callously tossing the corpse into the gorge, never to be found by the authorities. Once caught, the unrepentant villain's unshakable demeanor earns him the moniker 'The Iceman,' an extortion conviction putting him in a prison cell next to a real wild bunch: Broderick Crawford top billed as ringleader Rollo Lamar, expertly planning a breakout; Lon Chaney as dope smuggler Alamo Smith; William Talman as small time murder for hire Machine Gun Mason; and a buff Charles Bronson as Benny Kelly, taking potshots at the newcomer as a cowardly baby snatcher. Rollo intends to 'kidnap the kidnapper' to force him to deliver the money secretly stashed away at the gorge, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies in his wake, scalded, shot, drowned, or just plain mutilated. It's truly grim stuff, surprisingly brutal for its time though curiously forgotten since Meeker's next role was that of Mike Hammer in Kubrick's 1956 classic "Kiss Me Deadly." Amidst these nefarious tough guys, leave it to reliable Lon Chaney to portray the lone character to earn any sympathy, he may also be a killer but in his carvings of beautiful women appears to have been a ladies man, still pining for the good old days much to Rollo's amusement. This was his 4th and final teaming with drinking buddy Brod Crawford, who was apparently less capable than Chaney of concealing his affliction off camera, while up and coming Charles Bronson shows he already had the physical stature to become an action star to be reckoned with.

There were many movies about jail breaks all over decades, especially in the black and white era, and pretty good ones. But this one is underrated though pulled by powerful acting and directing skills. Don't forget that Howard Koch already gave us SHIELD FOR MURDER, THE LAST MILE - another prison crime film, and among the best ever - and the last but not the least: BADGE 373, in 1973. So back to this one, I have watched it several times already and will never get tired of it. Yes, because you have no hero here. Ralph Meeker could have been, but a hero abducting a child and asking to ransom then? And what about the bunch of heavies whom he meets behind bars? Everyone is excellent in this gritty and brutal crime flick. It should have been best released, at least in France, where it is totally unknown. The ending is also so abrupt, an ending that you could have never expected. And of course, there is no love intrigue here, despite the presence of the only female character. In the same kind of topic, you also had Crane Wilbur's CANON CITY.