The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's (1960)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Frank Launder

Writers:

Sidney Gilliat (writer)
Frank Launder (writer)

Release Date:

December 1960 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

The hellions of St. Trinians are recruited to a sheik's harem. Little does he know what he's letting himself in for.

Plot Keywords:

School | Sequel | Schoolgirl | Uniform | Independent Film

Cast

George Cole	...	'Flash' Harry Cuthbert Edwards
Cecil Parker	...	Professor Canford
Joyce Grenfell	...	Sergeant Ruby Gates
Eric Barker	...	Culpepper-Brown
Thorley Walters	...	Butters
Irene Handl	...	Miss Harker-Parker
Dennis Price	...	Gore Blackwood
Sid James	...	Alphonse O'Reilly
Julie Alexander	...	Rosalie Dawn
Lloyd Lamble	...	Superintendent Samuel Kemp-Bird
Raymond Huntley	...	Judge
Nicholas Phipps	...	Major
Lisa Lee	...	Miss Brenner
John Le Mesurier	...	Minister of Education
George Benson	...	Defence Counsel

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Australia:G | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Oakley Court, Windsor Road, Oakley Green, Windsor, Berkshire, England, UK

Company:

British Lion Film Corporation

Trivia:

Shirley Anne Field and Judy Cornwell auditioned for schoolgirl parts.

Movie Connections:

Followed by St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (2009)

Starts well but doesn't sustain it

When the school is burnt to the ground, all the girls find themselves in the dock. However the judge decides mercy and takes up the offer of one Professor Canford to open a new school with a backer and try to change the girls. The backer, Alphonse O'Reilly, takes the whole school on a trip to Europe, but Flash Harry finds that the ship is actually on it's way to Africa, where Alphonse plans to sell the older girls into harems!

This entry in the series starts really well. Not only does it have what I consider to be a great line (`there's always trouble when there's arson around') but the courtroom stuff is very funny. The rest of the film from there starts to tail off, the continuation of the film sees the old characters come back in (mostly) are this is good. However once the action moves to Africa etc it all becomes a little silly but doesn't manage to be fun for it.

The action gets more frantic and less amusing as it goes along and, by the end of the whole thing, I'd pretty much lost interest in it. The cast are reasonably good. The girls are in two camps – the young thugs and the sexy `girls' (albeit it they are happily in their 20's). The support cast includes good performances from George Cole (complete with cheeky chappy music in case you didn't get it). Parker and Grenfell are OK but their stuff on the island doesn't really wash. Barker and Walters are fine, as is a cameo from Le Mesurier, but Sid James is pretty wasted.

Overall this is worth seeing if you like the series (although it fades throughout the 90 minutes), but there are better films in the series if you're just coming in now.