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

This pseudo-documentary style film failed to disguise the disjointedness of it's narrative. This case history of a crime begins in the great outdoors. It was filmed in Clorado Royal Gorge Park. A sick young boy with asthma runs away from camp after being scared by the nurse at the camp (a young Felicia Farr who made her feature debut with this film as Randy Farr) The boy is 'helped' by a strange man (Ralph Meeker) who then kidnaps him and proceeds to blackmail the boy's wealthy father.But then the the boy accidentally dies in a fall from a condemned forest lookout tower where the man had put him. It's a very disturbing scene as Meeker finds the dead boy and he remains ice cold and callously just throws the dead boy over a cliff of rocks below. And because the body id never found, Meeker can only be convicted on a extortion charge.The story then shifts gears entirely turning to prison drama which was filmed at the Cascabel Island facility. The plot now focuses on four cutthroat convicts: Broderick Crawford, William Talman, Lon Chaney Jr., and a young, super ripped muscle bound Charles Bronson. With the "extortionist" now called the "Ice Man" because of his stone cold stare and demeanor, is thrown in with them. A breakout is planned, of course, with their target the hidden $200,000 ransom money Meeker hid away before being arrested. The escape is successful but their is a falling-out among them and two gang members are killed. A gun battle ensues with the remaining gang and one more is killed and the remaining are arrested once again.All in all not a great film but what a great cast of convicts! Especially Bronson stood out. After his big breakout role opposite Alan Ladd in "Drum Beat" a year before, Bronson was relegated to the sort of supporting 'heavy' roles he had done so often before in this black-and-white supporting feature. As in "My Six Convicts", his tough physiognomy lends itself well to the inside of a prison. But director Howard W. Koch and scriptwriter John C. Higgins gave him the short end of the stick by killing Bronson off once the prison escape had been effected. His death is a grisly one also. Crawford orders Talman to use a blowtorch on Bronson's face and fingers to obliterate any means of identification in a effort to distract the police. All in all , I had never seen Bronson so 'cut' in muscularity. I bet that for the time , 1955, the was not a single body builder at that time with a ripped torso that Bronson presented in this film. Had he been competing , I bet he would have been winning like crazy. Bronson had muscles on top of muscles!I was so glad to finally see this film. What a great and tremendous cast. The characters were depicted very brutal as to anesthetized all sympathy and their savagery is minutely explored by the director Koch, in a manner that leaves one shocked yet disinterested. The melodrama provides a fair amount of entertainment, plenty of violence is featured throughout in some rather chilling scenes but it fits the tough characters involved with which the story deals. Meeker did a great job as a cold-blooded crook nicknamed "The Iceman" by Crawford. Talman , Chaney and especially Bronson made great members of Crawford's gang.

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.

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).