"No Orchids for Miss Blandish" is an excellent British film noir picture. Its greatest strength is its script--which avoids sentimentality and has a hard edge that makes it a big tougher than its American cousins.Miss Blandish is a young lady whose father is immensely wealthy. Additionally, her diamonds have caught the eyes of some petty thugs who are planning on robbing her. This robbery turns out to be super- vicious and in the process, two of the robbers are killed. The remaining crook is a swell guy--who not only plans on taking the diamonds but raping Blandish! However, just before he can complete this vicious act, another gang (headed by Slim---played by Jack LaRue) takes the diamonds and kills the remaining thug. At first, this second gang plans on keeping the diamonds and ransoming the woman, but Slim falls for the lady and soon decides to not only keep her for himself but return the jewels! This, of course, doesn't sit well with the gang and you know it's only a matter of time before they make their move.This is an incredibly violent film for the time. Not only is the attempted rape heavily implied, but the very end is really, really violent--and fortunately does NOT give way to sentiment. Overall, a very gritty film with great gangster dialog and lots to appreciate.By the way, one reviewer complained how bad the accents were, as the cast was mostly British and they were pretending to be Americans. Well, I thought this was barely noticeable most of the time and didn't think this impaired the film at all. Sure, a few of the attempts were downright silly...but don't take away from the great noir plot, atmosphere and horrifyingly realistic violence. Just my two-cents worth.

At the time this was released, some 65 years ago, the critics mauled it and not just that, they were furious. The eminent reviewer, Dillys Powell, suggested it should have been awarded a 'D' certificate, for 'disgusting' and the censor later apologised for having mislead the public into seeing something they perhaps shouldn't have. Monthly Film Bulletin used the words, 'sickening', 'brutality','perversion' and 'sex & sadism'. Well, needless to say it doesn't live up to all that, though a tender reviewer on this site in 2006 slammed it as 'the toughest film I have seen'. It's British and based upon the infamous book of the same title by the Brit, James Hadley Chase and well worth seeing. You will be surprised at the violence and sexual reference, considering the time, but you will survive.

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.

Although there aren't gallons of blood spurting from every wound there is fairly realistic violence, probably more realistic than in the cartoony movies of today. The petty brutality rang true as did her actions at the end when everyone thought she should be glad her "captor" was dead and she was "free." Clearly the woman had emotional problems. Even in the movie the word "sick" was used. The thing that bothered me the most about this movie was the persistent impression I got that it was dubbed. Of course it wasn't but the acting and sound were of that quality. I didn't particularly care about variable accents--any major American city must have had all sorts because of immigration after WWII. I was bothered by the strange use of slang in the dialog where more than once I looked at the screen wondering if I'd heard right.I couldn't help noticing the idea in the movie, with her rich boyfriend, in one particular torch song, and in the actions of Miss B, that women really want a tough guy with no morals and to go over to the dark side. Her sudden violent attraction to her captor went far beyond Patty Hearst being involved in a bank robbery. This was a lot more like Bonnie and Clyde. She wanted to be a gangster's moll with her hubby running a gambling joint in another country. Why she thought that was attractive and liberating was a mystery to me. She probably saw too many movies, the same way people today think mobsters are glamorous and some mob characters are even romantic leads in soap operas. And while the ending was symbolic, even in NYC in the late 40s people wouldn't just walk around a beautiful woman's dead body, crushing her flower underfoot. At the very least they would have formed a dense crowd around her that the police would have had to disperse with the usual, "Nothing to be seen here; move along." And apparently nobody called the cops to get the area cordoned off so the death could be investigated. More like just leaving it there to be robbed. Well, hey, in America wealthy women fling themselves out of windows every day of the week and so of course the public doesn't even notice it any more! Our movies exported a wonderful image of America!