Blue Murder at St. Trinian's (1957)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This, the second film in the series, opens with Flash Harry in Rome; he is running the 'St. Trinian's Marriage Bureau' and trying to set a wealthy Italian prince up with one of the school's sixth form; the problem is he can't decide which he likes most so tells Harry to bring them all to Rome. This may present a problem as nobody in their right mind would allow the girls of St. Trinian's to travel abroad! Back in England the school is waiting for the new headmistress to arrive from Australia; in the meantime the school is being run by the army… inevitably it is the army that are taking casualties! After some thinking they come up with a plan; they arrange to 'win' a UNESCO school's competition which has a trip round Europe as its prize. Of course things get complicated further; in this case by a diamond robber who tries to take shelter from the police in the school. He ends up going on the trip in a very unlikely role; along with a policewoman who is masquerading as the interpreter.After the opening 'Belles of St. Trinian's' this was a little bit disappointing but still had a decent number of laughs. The main weakness is that for the most part the story focuses on the adults and their schemes rather than the children; and when it does focus on the children it mainly focuses on the clearly twenty something sixth-formers rather than the feral forth formers who are far funnier thanks to their anarchic behaviour. The cast do a solid job and there are a good range of jokes meaning that it can be enjoyed by people of all ages… it is just a shame that we didn't get to see the La Crosse match… just its aftermath, nor do we see what they are shooting out with a stolen Bren gun! If you enjoyed the first St. Trinian's film I'd certainly recommend watching this one too.

By sheer accident I recently saw the worst of this generally well-regarded British series (the 1980 "Wildcats of St. Trinian's"), so I thought to be fair I'd check out the best. Well, this is A LOT better. This is a genuinely hilarious film, not just in the jokes but in the absurd situations. It starts with the notorious title girls' school under military occupation, resulting in heavy casualties (for the military). The older "sixth form" girls decide they want to travel to Rome to meet a wealthy Italian count so they work with the younger "fourth form" hellions to break into the Ministry of Education and rig the results of a UNESCO exam. But when no respectable tour bus company will take this collection of monsters and minxes to the continent, they hire a shady operator (famed British comedian Terry-Thomas). Their "chaperone" meanwhile is the fugitive diamond-thief father of one of the girl's who is disguised as the new headmistress (they "disappear" the real headmistress), which turns the whole thing into a hilarious comedy caper film.It is a little disconcerting, as other reviewers have noted, that this film mixes the family-friendly scenes of the "fourth-form" ragamuffins with the scenes of the sexualized and sexually-predatory "sixth formers". But let's be honest--the first females most men sexually experienced or fantasized about were probably 16-18 years old, and those who claim to have no lingering attraction to girls that age are either lying or senile. Moreover, the "sixth formers" here are obviously played by somewhat older actresses, who are naturally pretty sexy. The most recognizable actress, for instance, is Italian sex bomb Lisa Gastoni. Now if you're sexually attracted to the "fourth formers", I'd say you have problems, but otherwise. . .But I digress. These British comedies would get a lot more racy moving into the 70's, but they were rarely as funny as this one. This ranks with the best of the "Carry on" series (i.e. "Carry on Camping", "Carry on Spying") and should be a must-see for any British comedy fan.

In the days before political correctness reared its ugly head, boys were boys and girls and girls, and ne'er the twain should meet - except for St. Trinian's where small girls were boys, at least in their behaviour, and large girls were rather pretty, in Sabrina's case voluptuous. The main characters were all well drawn with a splendid supporting cast and all very British. Alastair Sim was perfect as the headmistress, George Cole was the Cockney geezer, Joyce Grenfell the ever spurned policewoman while Eric Barker as Culpepper Brown and Richard Wattis as Bassett were truly superb archetypal education ministers. As for Terry-Thomas - well? Even a coach driver could be posh in those days! Stiff upper lip what, even with St. Trinian's on board. All good clean fun which had family audiences flocking to the local cinema. What a pity they don't show films like this any more on television because they beat the modern rubbish hollow for entertainment value.

Not the strongest film in the ‘St Trinians' series, but nevertheless enjoyable for fans of mid-50s British comedy. It tends to slapstick at times, particularly the scene where the policemen are looking for the diamond thief – a straight lift from `The Pirate of Penzance'. The caste is the cream of British comedy at the time. Two mentions: a young George Cole, who went on to make a career of playing Cockney spivs, and Joyce Grenfell as Sgt Ruby Gates. The latter is a standout performance. Joyce Grenfell must surely be on of the finest female comedians of all time and the film is worth watching for her performance alone.