Revolt in the Big House

Robert Blake is a young man sent to prison. The guards are corrupt, the warden, played by Emile Mayer, is an uncaring bureaucrat, and Blake's cellmate is Gene Evans, who tries to get him to start a riot to cover Evans' prison break.

R.G. Springsteen was a ver competent B western director. He was so good he survived directing them after they were long dead. A few times he got to direct crime dramas, and he knew how to take people like Evans, who usually played henchmen in oaters, and bring him up to date.

The 1930s had prison dramas that were about the reforming power, about how thoughtful, caring authorities. The 1950s brought a new look, stories about the bad, bad men -- and women -- locked up there, and how they mistreated themselves, creatures of violence from which society must be guarded; perhaps there was a bit of paranoia about communism lurking in the subtext. Robert Blake is not there to be reformed. He is a vicious, dangerous creature in the eyes of the warden, who believes the guards who plant a knife on him. If he is to be reformed, he must do it himself. He must realize that the life of a criminal will kill him and the few decent men in prison and make the effort without help.