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

Loosely inspired by a real life case, this gritty little film documents the fate of a ne'er do well drifter who seizes the opportunity to make money off the disappearance of a wealthy child. Meeker plays the stoic (and uncomfortably good-looking) extortionist who locates a missing boy only to hole him up in a condemned ranger station while he attempts to milk $200,000 from the boy's panicked father Bouchey. Bouchey does everything he's told, in an effort to spare his sick wife from even knowing about the boy's ordeal, but it's all for naught when Meeker is caught, but the boy isn't retrieved. Meeker is convicted of extortion (not kidnapping!) and sent to the Big House where he's confronted with some unfriendly cellmates. Crawford is the burly ringleader, Chaney is the more sensitive, lunkheaded one, Bronson is an antagonistic muscle man and Talman is a skittish follower. All of them wish to escape and when they find out that Meeker has some ransom money hidden on the outside, they decide to drag him along with them so they can split it up! They bust out via a fairly elaborately constructed tunnel, but that's hardly the end of their problems. Meeker does a very solid job in a film with few, if any heroes. It's disconcerting for the viewer to see a nice-looking man resorting to some of the things he does here. Crawford, top-billed though he takes quite a while to show up, is savvy and ruthless (and, unfortunately, shows off far more chest that Meeker does!) Talman, infamous as the constant nemesis of "Perry Mason", and Chaney don't get a lot of screen time, but handle what they get effectively. Bronson is rock hard and frequently shirtless, revealing an impressive figure for 1955, a time when most men rarely worked out to that degree. Jack Lemmon's future wife, Farr, amusingly billed as "Randy", plays a nurse. Votrian portrays the little rich boy and it's not without amusement, though there's residual guilt in laughing at someone whose fate is so horrifying. He starts off with a persistent cough, intended to be an asthma attack and can't ever stop hacking UNTIL he has a line, during which he's perfectly fine! This occurs several times. He also has a jaw-dropping hysterical scene when Farr attempts to give him a shot. Saddled with an overbite and toothpick legs jutting out of the planet's shortest shorts, he's a gangly mess and is agonizingly annoying. Still, no one likes to think of any child receiving this type of treatment. This film should really have had a different title since only a small portion of it takes place behind bars. It's a startlingly brutal piece of movie-making for its time with a couple of really rough deaths including a bad fall, a broiling in a steam tank and a hammer to the head, followed by a face-roasting via a flame gun! The worst thing is the horrendous and almost completely unnecessary voice-over narration supplied by Hadley as an FBI agent. It's one of those terrible things in which the events depicted clearly on screen are described by a dry, stony voice when viewers simply could have watched it themselves. One great thing is the use of outdoor locations and the assemblage of interesting cast members. It's certainly worth the 83 minutes it takes to watch it!

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

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.