The Grissom Gang (1971) Movie Review & Film summary, Cast

May actually surpass Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? and The Legend of Lylah Clare as Robert Aldrich’s most maniacal film, based on James Hadley Chase’s famous pulp – and I mean, Pulp – novel “No Orchids For Miss Blandish”. One of the post-Bonnie & Clyde ’20s backwoods crime flicks of the early ’70s, but going far beyond the run of the mill in its mounting insanity. Kim Darby’s society flapper is kidnapped at gunpoint by one group of morons, only for them to be exterminated by the even more uncouth Grissom family, based on the Barkers, complete with Irene Dailey’s fearsomely psychopathic Ma, slick-ass would-be ladykiller Eddie (Tony Musante) and idiot tough guy Slim (Scott Wilson) who, after the ransom is duly paid, is the only one standing between missy Blandish and a hole in the head – just as long as she keeps him happy in the sack. The weirdness piles on with Aldrich’s customary sweaty vividness, and though the film is excessively long and flabby in places, it shows Aldrich’s bizarre, overheated style at full rev.