The Grissom Gang

One of Aldrich's finest and most complex films, this adaptation of James Hadley Chase's notorious No Orchids for Miss Blandish is far more than just another contribution to the nostalgic rural gangster cycle initiated by Bonnie and Clyde. For one thing, the eponymous family, who kidnap '30s heiress Miss Blandish, are never glamorised but portrayed as a pathetic, ignorant bunch of grotesques; for another, as the petulant and spoilt heroine turns the sadistic and murderous Slim Grissom's love for her to her own cruelly humilating purposes, the film becomes an unsentimental exploration of perverse power-games played between two characters whose very different family backgrounds cannot conceal the latent vulnerability they both share. As such it is simultaneously witty and surprisingly touching, its disturbing emotional undercurrents lent depth by the assured playing of both Darby and Wilson.