★ 10 / 10
I'm gonna kidnap a kidnapper for the money
John Chard
I'm gonna kidnap a kidnapper for the money he kidnapped for. Big House, U.S.A. is directed by Howard W. Koch and written by John C. Higgins, George George and…
I'm gonna kidnap a kidnapper for the money he kidnapped for.
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
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★ 7 / 10
NOT a typical prison picture--an amazing cast, a major twist, great locations...
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…
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.
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