The success of 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde kicked off a small wave of Depression-era gangster films and crime thrillers. Robert Altman's The Grissom Gang (1971) was the second film based on James Hadley Chase’s 1939 novel No Orchids for Miss Blandish, and it takes the story about the kidnapping of an heiress by a brutal gang out of the urban noir New York setting of the first adaptation and into the dusty, arid atmosphere of 1920s Missouri. Kim Darby is the target Barbara and Scott Wilson is the unstable Slim Grissom, a borderline simpleton with a psychotic streak who grabs her from the hapless kidnappers. Slim falls in love with Barbara and becomes both her jailer and protector from the Ma Barker-like gang run by his mother, who wants to kill Barbara after receiving the ransom. Wilson (coming off his career-making role in In Cold Blood) is excellent as Slim, whose juvenile crush carries a sexual threat, and Darby (True Grit) deftly evolves her character from a state of shock into survival mode, which means aligning herself with the lovesick Slim. It's a well-directed but brutal and sometimes unpleasant film about cold-blooded outlaws, a hard-edged drama that offers few admirable characters (the closest is a private eye, played by Robert Lansing, hired by Barbara's father). Tony Musante costars as the gang's most strong-willed (and least sentimental) member and Connie Stevens appears as a nightclub singer. Extras include audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson, and a 2018 interview with late actor Wilson. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)
The Grissom Gang
Kino Lorber, 128 min., R, DVD: $19.99, Blu-ray: $29.99 Volume 34, Issue 2
The Grissom Gang
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