GOTTA SEE IT # 8 - "THE GRISSOM GANG"

“THE GRISSOM GANG”

Starring: Kim Darby, Scott Wilson, Tony Musante, Robert Lansing, Connie Stevens, Irene Dailey, Wesley Addy, Joey Faye, Michael Baseleon, Ralph Waite.
Written by: James Hadley Chase (novel), Leon Griffiths.
Directed by: Robert Aldrich
Colour – 1971
128 mins.
U.S.A.

Class. Everyone has it. That is they belong to a class - low, middle, high. At least, these labels are slapped, sometimes carelessly, on those with or without money or those with questionable or unquestionable morals. You can actually belong to two classes at the same time - high (money) and low (morals). Many of our most famous/wealthy people achieve this contradictory, dual distinction with apparent ease. Okay, I’m a bit off topic. What I’m trying to say is that in, “The Grissom Gang”, the class divide is bridged and then, softly, annihilated.

Set in the 1930's, Kim Darby (The Strawberry Statement) plays Barbara Blandish, an heiress who is kidnapped and held for ransom by backwoods Ma Grissom (Irene Dailey) and her family/gang of very nasty and very sweaty boys. Her plan is to get the ransom and then kill the girl to avoid getting caught. There’s only one problem - her son, Slim (Scott Wilson), has a big ole crush on the captive rich girl.

“The Grissom Gang” is at once dark and kooky - at once compelling and just plain loopy. Yet, at its’ centre is a remarkable back and forth between Scott Wilson’s sadistic, yet dim and sensitive Slim and Kim Darby’s tough yet brittle Barbara. Their scenes together are funny, sad and romantic. They collide off of one another in surprising ways - at different times resembling quarrelling siblings, a tyrannical mother and her compliant child and, in a most touching way, young, naive lovers.

I confess - I’m a big Scott Wilson fan. He’s one of those terrifically naturalistic performers who makes the very difficult art of acting look easy. Lesser actors play characters, he takes possession of them - soul and all. He’s also got a wonderful sympathetic quality that, particularly here, makes detestable characters likable. There are scenes where Grissom Gang member and playboy creep Eddie (Tony Musante) plays Slim for a fool. They are painful, awkward moments. You catch yourself feeling deeply for Slim before you remember he’s heading upstairs to see a woman whom he played a part in kidnapping.

Producer/ Director Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen, The Killing Of Sister George) is one of those filmmakers whose work always seems only a scene or two away from slipping into full-on camp. I felt that way about “The Killing Of Sister George” and still can’t get the image out of my head of him killing his son off during the opening credits/plane crash of “The Flight Of The Phoenix.” I chuckled as I typed that last sentence. This isn’t to say that I don’t like his films, on the contrary, especially when it comes to this one. I’m just acknowledging a peculiar, almost-falling-apart-but-still-very-good-quality of his movie making. His films are the cinematic equivalent of some wild Evel Knievel stunt - any moment it threatens to turn into a mammoth disaster. “The Grissom Gang”, thankfully, does not.

As the final moments play out under a scorching sun, with press, police, concerned and unconcerned parties looking on, something that truly, rarely happens in films happens - you’re moved. Yes, the film that almost teetered a bit too much and toppled into a land overpopulated by hack acting and inept direction ends with grace and power.