St. Trinians - The Pure Hell Of St. Trinians [DVD] [1960]

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The Terror of St Trinians or Angela's Prince Charming (1952; text by Timothy Shy, pen-name for D. B. Wyndham Lewis) The school has no fixed motto but has had several suggested ones. The school's motto is depicted in the original movies from the 1950s and 1960s as In flagrante delicto ("Caught in the Act"). This can be seen on the trophy shelf, above the stairs in The Belles of St Trinian's (1954). The lyrics of the original theme song by Sidney Gilliat (c. 1954) imply that the school's motto is "Get your blow in first" [11] ( Semper debeatis percutis ictu primo). The film was among some of the most popular British films to be released in 1954, with critics praising the comedy and several of the cast members for their performances, including Sim's dual role as the headmistress Miss Millicent Fritton and her twin brother Clarence Fritton. [2] The film was the first to be produced in the St. Trinian's film series – three sequels were later produced and released after this film: Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957); The Pure Hell of St Trinian's (1960); and The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery (1966). Third, and third best, film in the St. Trinian's series. The decline in quality is gentle and, although it looks a bit tired, this one still offers a lot of entertainment largely due to some wonderful comedic performances.

Thumim, Janet. "The popular cash and culture in the postwar British cinema industry". Screen. Vol.32, no.3. p.259. The Belles of St. Trinian's borrows several of the stars and supporting players from The Happiest Days of Your Life, including Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell, Richard Wattis, George Cole and Guy Middleton. While the St. Trinian's film is broader and not as well plotted as The Happiest Days of Your Life, it does benefit greatly from recycling that film's cast of character actors. Screenplay Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat, Val Valentine Producers Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat Cinematography Stanley Pavey Art director Joseph Bato Editor Thelma Connell Music Malcolm Arnold Costume designer Anna DuseThe film was the third most popular movie at the British box office in 1954, after Doctor in the House and Trouble in Store. [12] [13] Critical reception [ edit ] St Trinian's is depicted as an unorthodox girls' school where the younger girls wreak havoc and the older girls express their femininity overtly, turning their shapeless schoolgirl dress into something sexy and risqué by the standards of the times. St Trinian's is often invoked in discussions about groups of schoolgirls running amok. [ citation needed] According to Mark Simpson in his book Alastair Sim: The Real Belle of St. Trinian's, Alastair Sim was originally offered only the part of Miss Fritton's brother Clarence. But when Launder and Gilliat were unable to find an actress to play the role of the headmistress, he suggested he could play both roles.

For those who are interested, St Trinian's School and its home in the fictional county of Barsetshire seems to be located in the Home Counties, west of London. Presumably somewhere near Berkshire, as this film makes reference to Newbury Races and the sequel, Blue Murder at St. Trinian's,has a signpost near the school showing that it's 10 miles from Wantage. The county name of Barsetshire is borrowed from the novels of Anthony Trollope. It has some hilarious moments - particularly the opening trial sequence and the striptease to the soliloquy from "Hamlet" - but it's on the same level as the first two films. As I said yesterday, Alastair Sim's virtual absence from "Blue Murder at St. Trinian's" was a blow to the film while his complete absence from this one is a major blow to it. Considering the importance of Miss Fritton to the first film and the fact that the school burns down, it's bizarre that she isn't even mentioned. In 1990, Chris Claremont and Ron Wagner paid tribute to both Searle and St Trinian's in a story arc in the Marvel comic book Excalibur, in which Kitty Pryde became a student at "St Searle's School for Young Ladies". [15] Towards the end of the arc, Commandere Dai Thomas exclaims, "I took a look at the Special Branch records. Have you any notion what this school's done in the past? With them about, who needs the perishing SAS?" [16] Launder does a near-perfect job of bringing the girls onto the silver screen. The film's tempo keeps to a fast trot and sometimes breaks into a gallop. His comedic timing is excellent. When the Civil Servants dance, he keeps his distance and films them in full, adding to the funniness of the sketch. But if somebody is whispering, he goes for a close-up, and you feel like you're sharing the joke - once again adding power to the humour. You see, in other schools girls are sent out quite unprepared into a merciless world. But when our girls leave here, it is the merciless world which has to be prepared."

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Malcolm Arnold's comic sensibilities serve him particularly well in The Belles of St. Trinian's.His main theme is a rambunctious version of the school song, raggedly played as if it's being bashed out by the school orchestra. Flash Harry also gets his own theme, a high speed comical march, to complement his shifty shuffle. The musical score for the St Trinian films was written by Malcolm Arnold and included the school song, with words accredited to Sidney Gilliat (1954). [13] In the 2007 film, a new school song, written by Girls Aloud, was called "Defenders of Anarchy". The school also has a fight song. Sim was already established as a favourite of Launder and Gilliat, appearing in their dramas Waterloo Road and London Belongs to Me and their thriller Green for Danger, as well as their 1950s comedies The Happiest Days of Your Life and Folly to be Wise, and later Geordie, The Green Man and Left, Right and Centre.

Webb, Kaye, ed. (1959). The St Trinian's Story. London; New York (respectively): Perpetua Books; London House & Maxwell. pp.44–45. OCLC 2898524. JOHN WAYNE HEADS BOX-OFFICE POLL". The Mercury. Hobart, Tasmania. 31 December 1954. p.6 . Retrieved 24 April 2012– via National Library of Australia. In the 1950s they began to specialise in making comedy films, and these were the boom years for British film comedy. The Belles of St. Trinian's was produced by Launder and Gilliat, directed by Launder and co-written by both, together with a regular collaborator screenwriter Val Valentine. This creative team would remain in place for the next two films in the series. The Sultan of Makyad enrols his daughter Fatima at St. Trinian's – a girls' school in England, run by its headmistress Millicent Fritton. Upon her arrival, she discovers that Millicent runs the school to prepare her students to succeed in a merciless world by having her students fight against authoritative figures in both the police and the government. Many of the girls are unruly and have criminal relations; as a result, the school's curriculum focuses mainly on lessons in crime and illicit schemes, all while the students thwart efforts by the local police and the Ministry of Education (the British government department during that period; now called the Department for Education) to shut down the school. Millicent, however, faces problems as St. Trinian's is on the verge of bankruptcy, and seeks any means to clear the school's debt. Without Sim or Grenfell, the series had to find new stars and so Frankie Howerd and Dora Bryan are roped in to play the lead roles. Howerd was a comedian who appeared in a couple of Carry Onsand took the lead role in a few comedy films, but was most successful on TV in the Roman era sitcom Up Pompeii, which ranfrom 1969 to 1970.

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This anarchic portrayal of school life inevitably made the films tremendously popular with British schoolchildren in the 1950s, as a fantasy version of the kind of school where the pupils are really the ones in charge, something that children in the stricter post-war years could only dream about.

In the first two films, St Trinian's is presided over by the genial Miss Millicent Fritton (Sim in drag), whose philosophy is summed up as: "In other schools girls are sent out quite unprepared into a merciless world, but when our girls leave here, it is the merciless world which has to be prepared." Later other headmistresses included Dora Bryan in The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery. Many viewers seem to regard this as the last of the original St. Trinian's films, but there was in fact one more film in the series. Frank Launder would unexpectedly return to the world ofSt. Trinian's one last time 14 years later with The Wildcats of St. Trinian's in 1980.

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During his BBC interview [8] Searle agreed that the cruelty depicted at St Trinian's derived partly from his captivity during World War II but stressed that he included it only because the ignoble aspect to warfare in general had become more widely known. Malcolm Arnold - The Complete Catalogue of Published Works" (PDF). Malcolm Arnold Society. 2004. p.10. This section's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. ( December 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Sim successfully differentiates his two characters in The Belles of St. Trinian's, although it's not that hard when one is wearing a dress, and the shady Clarence is simply the warm up act for his star turn as Miss Fritton.