A wealthy society girl is kidnapped by small-time hoodlums who are bushwhacked in their turn by a bigger, meaner gang. During her ordeal as a captive, Miss Blandish 'does what she has to, to stay alive'.
The 1939 novel "No Orchids For Miss Blandish" is the source for this film. In its time, the book was attacked (not least by George Orwell) for being a work of prurient, sadistic pornography. The film remains faithful to the original in that it deals enthusiastically in squalor, cruelty and sexual incontinence.
In the sweaty, malodorous world of the 1930's criminal underclass, the crooks show no mercy to those who fall into their clutches and expect no quarter for themselves. The rich are no moral paragons, either. They behave boorishly at social functions, and John Blandish regards his daughter as a piece of property, losing interest in her when he realises that she has become 'soiled goods'.
Prohibition is shown to be the root of the nation's ills. Outlawing alcohol leads to excessive consumption, enriches the criminals and contributes to a feverish atmosphere of self-indulgence.
The action is set in the empty, impoverished MidWest of the Depression. These small-time criminals cannot even lay claim to the dubious glamour of the Chicago gangsters. This is the world of Bonnie and Clyde rather than Capone and Luciano, and indeed the film owes much to Warren Beatty's groundbreaking "Bonnie and Clyde", made two years earlier.
Kim Darby gives a towering performance as Barbara Blandish. The role could hardly be more radically different from her first starring part, two years previously, as the asexual Mattie in "True Grit". She triumphs as the "uppety little bitch" who learns gradually and painfully that if she is to cling to life, she is going to have to descend to the gutter. Barbara grows as a person by virtue of the suffering she undergoes.
The other truly outstanding performance is that of Scott Wilson as Slim, the lecherous simpleton. Wilson is terrific in the role of the feeble-witted knifeman who gets turned on by killing people, but who remains in essence a child. Slim forms an attachment to Miss Blandish, and is ennobled by this hopeless, wrongheaded love affair. When he first makes sexual advances towards her, she rejects him in horror "because you're odious". Eventually, she comes to see the good in Slim, and Wilson gives his character a vulnerability and a yearning to outgrow his limitations which ultimately make the "cretinous halfwit" a sympathetic character.
In this nasty world of lowlifes and hustlers where men are gunned down and left to die in urinal troughs, David Fenner (Robert Lansing) is a tough and astute investigator who can more than hold his own against the bad guys. Scamming the scammers, he finally tracks down the kidnappers much more efficiently than the police are able to. Played by Lansing with an amusing tongue-in-cheek gravitas, Fenner is the one untarnished hero in the whole film.
Connie Stevens camps it up in delightful self-parody as Anna Berg, the classic dumb blonde speakeasy singer, the moll who's always teetering on the verge of prostitution. Eddie is played by Tony Musante as an impressive study in charming, but heartless, villainy. Eddie exploits Anna, murders potential witnesses and torments the slow-witted Slim, all without the vestige of a scruple.
Ma Grissom (Irene Dailey) is the ugly-natured mastermind who runs the shabby little gang. She gives her captive debutante a horrible beating for trying to escape, and her whole existence is mean and joyless, but she attains a kind of decency in the final bulletfest.
As the film draws to a close, it is not clear whether Miss Blandish has grown to love her tormentor, or merely to pity him. This is a satisfying conclusion. Open love would be too easy and sentimental. We are left pondering whether sex and love are distinct experiences, and marvelling that tenderness can flourish in this unpromising terrain.
The 1939 novel "No Orchids For Miss Blandish" is the source for this film. In its time, the book was attacked (not least by George Orwell) for being a work of prurient, sadistic pornography. The film remains faithful to the original in that it deals enthusiastically in squalor, cruelty and sexual incontinence.
In the sweaty, malodorous world of the 1930's criminal underclass, the crooks show no mercy to those who fall into their clutches and expect no quarter for themselves. The rich are no moral paragons, either. They behave boorishly at social functions, and John Blandish regards his daughter as a piece of property, losing interest in her when he realises that she has become 'soiled goods'.
Prohibition is shown to be the root of the nation's ills. Outlawing alcohol leads to excessive consumption, enriches the criminals and contributes to a feverish atmosphere of self-indulgence.
The action is set in the empty, impoverished MidWest of the Depression. These small-time criminals cannot even lay claim to the dubious glamour of the Chicago gangsters. This is the world of Bonnie and Clyde rather than Capone and Luciano, and indeed the film owes much to Warren Beatty's groundbreaking "Bonnie and Clyde", made two years earlier.
Kim Darby gives a towering performance as Barbara Blandish. The role could hardly be more radically different from her first starring part, two years previously, as the asexual Mattie in "True Grit". She triumphs as the "uppety little bitch" who learns gradually and painfully that if she is to cling to life, she is going to have to descend to the gutter. Barbara grows as a person by virtue of the suffering she undergoes.
The other truly outstanding performance is that of Scott Wilson as Slim, the lecherous simpleton. Wilson is terrific in the role of the feeble-witted knifeman who gets turned on by killing people, but who remains in essence a child. Slim forms an attachment to Miss Blandish, and is ennobled by this hopeless, wrongheaded love affair. When he first makes sexual advances towards her, she rejects him in horror "because you're odious". Eventually, she comes to see the good in Slim, and Wilson gives his character a vulnerability and a yearning to outgrow his limitations which ultimately make the "cretinous halfwit" a sympathetic character.
In this nasty world of lowlifes and hustlers where men are gunned down and left to die in urinal troughs, David Fenner (Robert Lansing) is a tough and astute investigator who can more than hold his own against the bad guys. Scamming the scammers, he finally tracks down the kidnappers much more efficiently than the police are able to. Played by Lansing with an amusing tongue-in-cheek gravitas, Fenner is the one untarnished hero in the whole film.
Connie Stevens camps it up in delightful self-parody as Anna Berg, the classic dumb blonde speakeasy singer, the moll who's always teetering on the verge of prostitution. Eddie is played by Tony Musante as an impressive study in charming, but heartless, villainy. Eddie exploits Anna, murders potential witnesses and torments the slow-witted Slim, all without the vestige of a scruple.
Ma Grissom (Irene Dailey) is the ugly-natured mastermind who runs the shabby little gang. She gives her captive debutante a horrible beating for trying to escape, and her whole existence is mean and joyless, but she attains a kind of decency in the final bulletfest.
As the film draws to a close, it is not clear whether Miss Blandish has grown to love her tormentor, or merely to pity him. This is a satisfying conclusion. Open love would be too easy and sentimental. We are left pondering whether sex and love are distinct experiences, and marvelling that tenderness can flourish in this unpromising terrain.