StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Gatto Nero 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.

MartinHafer 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).

wes-connors 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

moonspinner55 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 ****