Review of Grissom Gang, The

Introduction

Based on the 1939 novel "No Orchids For Miss Blandish" this film tells the tale of a rich girl’s kidnap buy a group of outlaws called the Grisom Gang. As time goes by one of the gang, the simple and extremely violent Slim (Scott Wilson), falls in love with the victim of the kidnapping, a young girl by the name of Barbara Blandish (Kim Darby). Barbara soon learns that the only way she’ll survive this is to lower herself to their level and sacrifice her innocence, engaging the gang in a very dangerous game for her freedom.

Video

The picture quality isn’t half bad when you consider the film was made in 1971 and couldn’t exactly be called a classic. This disc presents a 16:9,non-anamorphic, transfer with an overall crispness that you don’t usually find on a disc of this type. The colours aren’t as precise and vibrant as you would find on modern day movies but, being set in the 1930s, it suits the subject matter fine. There are some tell tale markings on the film print from time to time but that aside I was quite pleased with this picture.

Audio

Glorious mono, doh! It is a clear mono track it has to be said but I didn’t spend a small fortune on a home cinema set up to listen to mono tracks I’m afraid.

Features

The feature on this disc take the form of static pictures and pages of text, exactly the sort of extras that I find totally pointless. If I wanted to read I’d buy a book and the photos are usually no more than stills from the movie you’ve just watched anyway. Some thought has gone into the menu screen it has to be said but overall a very lack lustre set of extras.

Conclusion

This is a 1970s film set in the 1930s brought to DVD in 2001 and has aged badly. Whereas the subject matter was met with some considerable controversy in the 1930s when the book was written it has become understandably tame by todays moral standards or lack thereof. The story was probably considered action packed back then as well but by todays standards it’s pretty pedestrian stuff.

The acting is largely poor from the majority of the characters with only the characters of Slim and Barbara doing even half credible jobs and only then in certain scenes.

This is one of those few movies that I actually struggled to sit through. The pace was slow and the subject matter of no interest whatsoever. Coupled with a disc who’s only redeeming feature is a decent picture and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t already seen the movie and loved it, in which case you won’t get a picture anywhere near this sharp on VHS.