No Orchids for Miss Blandish
No Orchids for Miss Blandish
| 15 April 1948 (USA)
No Orchids for Miss Blandish Trailers

Filmed in England but set in New York, No Orchids For Miss Blandish tells of a sheltered heiress who is abducted on her wedding night by a trio of cheap hoods, in what starts out as a jewel robbery and turns into a kidnapping/murder when one of them kills the bridegroom. More mayhem ensues as the three kidnappers soon end up dead.

Reviews
Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
writers_reign I've always tended to link three films together in that they were all released around the same time and all aroused controversy. The three titles were 'The Outlaw', 'Forever Amber' and 'No Orchids For Blandish'. Eventually I saw them all though long after their initial 'shock' value had evaporated. 'No Orchids For Miss Blandish' eluded me the longest and I have, in fact, only just caught up with it on DVD. Overall it is slightly risible in that it seems to be asking the audience to accept a string of second-rate British actors as American; in order to do this all money is spoken of in terms of dollars, dough and/or bucks and the police wear US cop uniforms. Other than that little effort is made - or if it is it is woefully inadequate - in terms of accents and ironically the one genuine American in the cast, lead Jack LaRue, sounds more English than American. Leading lady and eponymous Miss Blandish Linden Travers looks remarkably like Moira Lister (who was 23 at the time and actually appeared in three films in 1948) and fails to convince that she would succumb to Stockholm syndrome in nothing flat and was possibly a role model for the real life Patty Hearst who followed suit in real life much later. Though more embarrassing than entertaining it is watchable at least once.
Neil Doyle That, and other cheerful little catch phrases spoken as gangster slang in this gangster melodrama (British-style), are spoken by a cast of British actors given some hilarious tough guy talk.In this terse screenplay they need little prodding to slug someone with a fist or a gun while the plan is to kidnap and rob a wealthy socialite who turns out to have a yen for the lead criminal (AL LA RUE). He has a role crying out for an American actor like Bogart or Garfield if this were a Warner melodrama. La Rue does alright but he's about as wooden as George Raft when it comes to delivering key lines with any enthusiasm.LINDEN TRAVERS is the pretty socialite captured by a bunch of thugs and falling quickly into the Patty Hearst syndrome when she becomes a willing victim willing to escape the sheer boredom of her life as a pampered daughter of a wealthy aristocrat.HUGH McDERMOTT is the detective set on her trail by her father who only wants to free her from captivity. It all feels like a Mickey Spillane thriller with little sympathy for any of the victims who get shot for the slightest infringement at a moment's notice.The nightclub scenes seem to have been inspired by GILDA ('46), with a songstress rendering a non-too-subtle rendition of a torch song in a flimsy peekaboo dress while around her all sorts of plotting and planning is going on somewhere in the dark.Not bad, but don't expect the dialog to have the sharp touch intended. "Drop your anchor in that chair," is about the best you can expect between all the slapping and punching and gunshots that abound in every other scene. The gangster slang gets a workout and some of the jargon is downright hilarious.
David (Handlinghandel) This is one of the roughest movies I've ever seen. I won't give anything away but, wow! The body-count is high.Linden Travers looks lovely in the title role. This actress was, generally associated with a different sort of film. She's beautiful and elegant. But she gives this part her all."No Orchids For Miss Blandish" is a British movie trying to seem an American. For us today, that's very much a reversal: How often do American movies try to put on the dog and portray the British! Unfortunately, the movie at hand doesn't really succeed. We don't believe it's taking place in the US. Even though we're shocked at the nonstop violence, we don't believe the story fully, either.Jack La Rue is good in the male lead. He was American. He is convincing.I wish I could say I recommend this as more than a curiosity. Ms. Travers is indeed superb. But it isn't terribly good. Not bad but, apart from the exceptional violence, nothing special either.
Oct This forgotten movie caused one of the biggest scandals in the history of the British cinema. Its violence was stronger than pre-war producers had been allowed, but it somehow slipped past the censor.The original novel had been judged unfilmable by Hollywood, but the Poverty Row studio Renown set out to prove the moguls wrong. The resultant outcry led Harold Wilson, a future premier who was the government minister responsible for films, to declare at an industry banquet- to loud applause- that he was glad there were "no Oscars for Miss Blandish".The fuss probably killed the career of Linden Travers, who had been in pictures since the mid-1930s but made no more appearances after 1949, dying 52 years later. Neither did its helmer, St John L Clowes, ever direct again. Interestingly, as far as I know the picture to this day has never appeared on British TV.