Review of Big House, U.S.A.

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!