The Grissom Gang

Kansas City, 1931. Barbara Blandish, the daughter of a rich meat supplier, is kidnapped and quickly falls into the hands of a nastier outfit, the Grissom family. Slim, the family's son, becomes obsessed with her, and a ransom job turns into a strange, sick relationship. The film is not interested in crime. It is interested in dependency: she uses his attention to stay alive, and he turns on his own family to keep her. Whether what passes between them can be called love is the question the film deliberately leaves open. The form rests on Robert Aldrich's hardness: dirt, sweat, a large shouting cast, and a refusal to make anybody likeable. The source is James Hadley Chase's 1939 novel No Orchids for Miss Blandish, a huge seller in Britain during the Second World War, particularly among serving soldiers. The outcome was heavy for Aldrich. In 1971 it was met with critical indifference and became his fourth box office failure in a row: against a $3 million budget it took $590,000. Afterwards he had to sell his own studio and go back to directing other people's projects for hire. Kim Darby and Scott Wilson star. Who it is for: viewers who like hard seventies American crime films and Aldrich. Who it is not for: anyone put off by crude violence and repellent characters. The film makes no attempt to win sympathy for anyone.