Thu 3 Sep 2009
A 1001 MIDNIGHTS review: JAMES HADLEY CHASE – No Orchids for Miss Blandish.
Posted by Steve under 1001 Midnights , Reviews[8] Comments
JAMES HADLEY CHASE – No Orchids for Miss Blandish. Howell Soskin, US, hardcover, 1942. UK edition: Jarrolds, hardcover, 1939. Revised edition: Panther, UK, pb, 1961; Avon, US, pb, 1961. Reprinted many times, in both hardcover and paperback. Film: Alliance, 1948. Also: Cinerama, 1971, as The Grissom Gang.
Since the publication of No Orchids for Miss Blandish, James Hadley Chase has sold millions of copies of his more than eighty novels. A British writer who uses mostly American characters and settings in his works, Chase has a fast-paced, hard-boiled style perfectly suited to his violent, action-filled novels.
The title character of Miss Blandish is a young socialite who is kidnapped by small-time hoods and then kidnapped from them by the members of the Grisson gang, a group based on the notorious Ma Barker and her sons.
Ma Grisson’s favorite son, Slim, a vicious, perverted killer, takes a special interest in Miss Blandish; so instead of killing her when the ransom is paid, Ma gives her to Slim—
She is kept in a narcotic haze by Doc, another of the gang, so that she will submit to Slim’s debased desires. Eventually, Miss Blandish’s father hires Fenner, a former crime reporter turned private eye, to find his daughter.
There is a bloody shoot-out between the gang and the police, but Slim escapes with Miss Blandish. He is finally cornered, but this is not the sort of story in which everyone can live happily ever after.
Chase does a fine job in Miss Blandish (even in the revised edition of 1961) of understating the sex and violence, which become more effective than if they had been spelled out.
The pace never lags, and the ending is very well handled. Miss Blandish is no longer as shocking as its reputation might suggest, but it remains a powerful crime novel.
Chase’s novels were well suited to the needs of the early paperback market, and many of them are highly sought after by collectors, as much for their colorful titles and gaudy covers as for their contents.
Examples include Twelve Chinks and a Woman (Avon, 1952) and Kiss My Fist! (Eton,1952).
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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007. Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.
September 3rd, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Dave Fenner, the private detective in this one is a series character who appears in several Chase novels. Robert Lansing played the part in The Grissom Gang. There is also a sequel.
Miss Blandish was taken to court by William Faulkner over its proximity to his Sanctuary — I think it was settled out of court, maybe someone who knows more will fill us in.
Sanctuary was filmed twice, once as Sanctuary with Yves Montand and Lee Remick, and once as The Story of Temple Drake with Terry Moore and Jack LaRue. Both are fairly hard to find since even tiptoeing around that infamous “instrumentation” with a corncob was controversial.
Chase is better than a guilty pleasure, but pretty uneven. Some are great, some are just okay, and some are just bad.
One pretty good little American film from one of his books, Johnny Allegro with George Raft, Nina Foch, and George Macready — with the latter playing at “The Most Dangerous Game” on his private island with Fed Raft. One of George’s better later efforts.
September 4th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
BLANDISH is probably Chase’s best-known, but I prefer 12 CHINKS… for pace and sustained action.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
David’s statement that Dave Fenner was in “several” Chase novels is misleading. Unless someone proves me in error, he was in only, two of them, MISS BLANDISH and 12 CHINKS.
In a famous essay by George Orwell, he discusses MISS BLANDISH thoroughly, saying in passing, “In borrowing from William Faulkner’s Sanctuary, Chase only took the plot; the mental atmosphere of the two books is not similar.”
http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/Orwell-C.htm
It’s a long, insightful piece of writing, and it’s worth reading in detail. (Leading into his thoughts on Chase’s world of realistic crime and criminals, he begins with a long segment on Raffles, whose adventures he uses as a base of comparison.)
Like David, I’ve never found anything specific about a court case that charged Chase with plagiarism.
September 5th, 2009 at 5:32 am
I’m not even sure the case was here in the US or if it was only brought in England. I do know Blandish was fairly hard to find for some reason.
For years the only US paperback was a rare (and expensive) Harlequin edition (before they turned to the romance thing)which leads me to wonder if there may not have been some legal issues. I don’t think another edition showed up until Chase’s books began to appear in paper here in the late sixties and seventies.
No Orchids for Miss Blandish was filmed in 1948 with Linden Travers (a woman) as Miss Blandish, Jack LaRue, and Hugh McDermott as Dave Fenner. No accident that LaRue also played a similar role in The Story of Temple Drake based on Sanctuary. The books aren’t merely ‘similar,’ it is out and out plagiarism, perhaps with a few ‘changes,’ but I don’t think the best lawyer in the world could convince me Chase was innocent in this one.
No Orchids is a better read I’ll grant, but it more than fits the definition of literary plagiarism, which requires 12 to 16 major points of similarity that are deliberate and unequivocal.
September 8th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Sorry to be coming in late on this conversation. I have the British 1st ed. of this book and have only read the novel in that edition. It’s been over twenty years that I did so, and whenever I think about the story I still get a little queasy about what happens to poor Miss Blandish. It’s easy to see why/what she did in the end. Has anyone read both the original and the “cleaned up” American version to compare what was left out? Either the hardback or pb versions? I’ve always wondered but never have taken the time to do it myself. Another project that I tell myself I’ll get to someday.
September 8th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
According to John Fraser on his website, there are at least five different versions of the book.
See http://www.jottings.ca/john/kelly/sbar1.html
Beginning with the Afterpieces, about halfway down, he details some of the changes. All I’ll copy here are the different editions. (Quoting from here on down.)
In any event, No Orchids exists in at least five different versions.
1. Jarrolds, 1939 hardcover and 1941 (?) paperback ; Corgi, 1961, paperback.
Miss Blandish is wearing pearls.
2. Jarrolds, 1942, revised. Hardcover and paperback; Harlequin paperback, 1951.
Miss B. is wearing diamonds. Substantial changes.
3. Howell, Soskin (U.S.), 1942.
The 1939 text with some of the same changes as in the 1942 Jarrolds edition. Miss B. still wearing pearls.
4. Avon, 1951; Diversey (Avon), 1948, 1949, as The Villain and the Virgin.
Pearls. No self-critical speech by Miss B. No suicide at the end. Eddie is socked on the head but not on knees and arm. Rocco doesn’t have an orgasm before being knifed. Other changes.
5. Panther, 1961; Penguin, 1980; heavily revised.
Diamonds. Self-critical speech, and suicide at the end, but the rich lady’s reaction to it omitted. Eddie gives in before being socked at all. Flynn and not Slim accompanies Eddy to the apartment building in search of Anna. Rocco, lying down, is knifed several times. There are other changes
If all this sounds confusing, it is.
April 30th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
[…] No Orchids for Miss Blandish, by Bill Crider (1001 Midnights). […]
March 12th, 2015 at 2:58 pm
There’s also a version based on the play – it states this clearly in the blurb for the Jarrolds hardback (490th thousand) – not having any other copies of the book I don’t know how different it is from the others