No Orchids for Miss Blandish [70th Anniversary Edition] [Blu-ray]

James Hadley Chase's under-the-counter 1930s bestseller was somewhat bowdlerized for the screen in 1948--but not enough for provincial British and American censors, some of whom refused to allow the picture to be shown at all in certain districts. No Orchids for Miss Blandish is a tawdry kidnapping yarn about a virginal heiress (Linden Travers) abducted for ransom by a pair of cheap hoods. They lose her to a bigger crook, one Slim Grissom (Jack LaRue). His intentions are far from honorable, but given the degeneracy of the rest of the Grissom gang, Miss Blandish finds herself attracted to the boss. They plan to run off together, but the secondary hoods bump off Grissom and return the girl for the ransom money. But Miss Blandish's father refuses to accept the girl back: "Better dead than deflowered." Financed by Americans and filmed in England, No Orchids for Miss Blandish was roundly panned by critics of both nations, who couldn't conceive of a film so tasteless and sadistic. Those critics must have had coronaries when the even slimier remake, The Grissom Gang, appeared in 1971.