Welcome to the Big House (2006 Video) User Reviews

Only 12 of the stable of 19 Warner Bros. "talking heads" . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 26 March 2015]

. . . cared to participate in this episode of countless DVD extras recorded on one long day in 2006. Though Larry Cohen, Michael B. Druxman, Frank Miller, Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese, Lili Fini Zanuck, and Irwin Winkler are acknowledged for their participation in this series at the close of WELCOME TO THE BIG HOUSE, they apparently had nothing to say on flicks about being in the clink. This is one of the largest contingents of A.W.O.L. "talking heads" for any of this set of documentary shorts. (Though actress Theresa Russell is never identified on-screen in WELCOME, she DOES contribute one fairly giddy comment in the opening Pre-title montage of observations, none of which are ever presented with attributions.) As for the material in WELCOME itself, the examples are drawn from a much smaller sample of the Warner Bros. Home Video back catalog than for the other parts of this haphazard colloquium. Only four movies are named and sampled: EACH DAWN I DIE, I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG, SAN QUENTIN, and WHITE HEAT. Apparently these so-called "experts"--including Hollywood-area university film department heads--have never heard of Humphrey Bogart's first film, UP THE RIVER (1930; directed by John Ford, and co-starring Spencer Tracy). THIS was the first example of Bogart playing a "good" con, NOT 1937's SAN QUENTIN, as Mis-stated here.