No Orchids for Miss Blandish

That, and other cheerful little catch phrases spoken as gangster slang in this gangster melodrama (British-style), are spoken by a cast of British actors given some hilarious tough guy talk.

In this terse screenplay they need little prodding to slug someone with a fist or a gun while the plan is to kidnap and rob a wealthy socialite who turns out to have a yen for the lead criminal (AL LA RUE). He has a role crying out for an American actor like Bogart or Garfield if this were a Warner melodrama. La Rue does alright but he's about as wooden as George Raft when it comes to delivering key lines with any enthusiasm.

LINDEN TRAVERS is the pretty socialite captured by a bunch of thugs and falling quickly into the Patty Hearst syndrome when she becomes a willing victim willing to escape the sheer boredom of her life as a pampered daughter of a wealthy aristocrat.

HUGH McDERMOTT is the detective set on her trail by her father who only wants to free her from captivity. It all feels like a Mickey Spillane thriller with little sympathy for any of the victims who get shot for the slightest infringement at a moment's notice.

The nightclub scenes seem to have been inspired by GILDA ('46), with a songstress rendering a non-too-subtle rendition of a torch song in a flimsy peekaboo dress while around her all sorts of plotting and planning is going on somewhere in the dark.

Not bad, but don't expect the dialog to have the sharp touch intended. "Drop your anchor in that chair," is about the best you can expect between all the slapping and punching and gunshots that abound in every other scene. The gangster slang gets a workout and some of the jargon is downright hilarious.

Forget the dumb title! This English Noir throws in every Hollywood cliché of the genre, and almost pulls it off smoothly. Certain plot points will remind you of some big American films, like "White Heat" and "The Asphalt Jungle", although this one came first. The "unacceptable" aspects, production code-wise, will surprise you, and the unpredictability of the plot is pretty wonderful in a film from this era. Look out for spoilers on this one! Hardworking actor Jack La Rue does nothing wrong in a role that begs for Bogart-- as so many past and present roles do.(He always reminds me of a sort of composite Bogie, Glenn Ford, and Victor Mature, especially here, without having quite their class, soul or looks, respectively.) And Linden Travers does everything she can with a practically impossible role-- you can't help but think that she could have used a little more help from director Clowes with the exposition. We don't expect noir, where style should come before substance, to be "believable" in the usual sense, but check this one out and see if it puts you in mind of how strong direction tells us what we know and can't see. If you like noir, and can roll with the punches, you'll love it.

This is one of the roughest movies I've ever seen. I won't give anything away but, wow! The body-count is high.

Linden Travers looks lovely in the title role. This actress was, generally associated with a different sort of film. She's beautiful and elegant. But she gives this part her all.

"No Orchids For Miss Blandish" is a British movie trying to seem an American. For us today, that's very much a reversal: How often do American movies try to put on the dog and portray the British! Unfortunately, the movie at hand doesn't really succeed. We don't believe it's taking place in the US. Even though we're shocked at the nonstop violence, we don't believe the story fully, either.

Jack La Rue is good in the male lead. He was American. He is convincing.

I wish I could say I recommend this as more than a curiosity. Ms. Travers is indeed superb. But it isn't terribly good. Not bad but, apart from the exceptional violence, nothing special either.

This forgotten movie caused one of the biggest scandals in the history of the British cinema. Its violence was stronger than pre-war producers had been allowed, but it somehow slipped past the censor.

The original novel had been judged unfilmable by Hollywood, but the Poverty Row studio Renown set out to prove the moguls wrong. The resultant outcry led Harold Wilson, a future premier who was the government minister responsible for films, to declare at an industry banquet- to loud applause- that he was glad there were "no Oscars for Miss Blandish".

The fuss probably killed the career of Linden Travers, who had been in pictures since the mid-1930s but made no more appearances after 1949, dying 52 years later. Neither did its helmer, St John L Clowes, ever direct again. Interestingly, as far as I know the picture to this day has never appeared on British TV.

This is the first version of James Hadley Chase's famous shocker. It was remade as "The Grissom Gang" in 1971 by Robert Aldrich. As a writer Chase made a fortune, despite getting atrocious reviews from British critics. The movie was no exception regarding reviews; some sample quotes... ...the most sickening exhibition of brutality, perversion, sex and sadism...the morals are about level with those of a scavenger dog...it has all the sweetness of a sewer...the worst film I have ever seen.

I saw it when I was sixteen and I loved it, even buying the record of the background music (Song Of The Orchid). It had a mostly British cast with one imported American *star* Jack La Rue. It would be interesting to see it again fifty years later. I imagine the violence everyone complained of would seem pretty tame by today's standards.