The Belles of St Trinian’s ***** (1954, Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell, George Cole, Beryl Reid, Joan Sims, Irene Handl) – 2015 Classic Movie Review 2786

Director Frank Launder and producer Sidney Gilliat’s 1954 British comedy classic about the misadventures of cartoonist creator Ronald Searle’s grotty schoolgirls at England’s famously appalling St Trinian’s School for Young Ladies is the original and best in the series.

This as a delightfully genial, hilariously funny slapstick comedy with a continuously amusing screenplay by Launder, Gilliat, Searle and Val Valentine, inspired by Searle’s original drawings of the girls and staff of St Trinian’s.

There is also priceless playing by Alastair Sim in twin roles as the ditheringly bumbling headmistress Miss Millicent Fritton and her crafty bookie brother Clarence, young George Cole as a quintessential 50s spiv Flash Harry, Beryl Reid as Miss Wilson, Joan Sims as Miss Dawn, Irene Handl as Miss Gale and Joyce Grenfell as the English schoolmarm, an undercover copper, Policewoman Sergeant Ruby Gates.

The arrival of Sultan’s daughter Princess Fatima (Lorna Henderson) at the school causes new trouble. The Sultan of Makyad (Eric Pohlmann)’s horse Arab Boy is to run at the nearby Gold Cup event, so Clarence Fritton ensures his own daughter is at the races to keep an eye on events.

It is Barbara Windsor’s debut, at 17, as one of the sixth-formers and a 13-year-old Carol White’s too as one of the younger girls.

Also in the cast are Hermione Baddeley, Betty Ann Davies, Renée Houston, Mary Merrall, Arthur Howard, Richard Wattis, Sidney James, Guy Middleton, Balbina, Jane Henderson, Diana Day, Jill Braidwood, Anabelle Covey, Pauline Drewett, Jean Langston, Lloyd Lamble, Michael Ripper, Eric Pohlmann, Martin Walker, Noel Hood, Vivienne Martin, Elizabeth Griffiths, Andree Melly, Belinda Lee, Michael Kelly, Tommy Duggan, Paul Connell, Vivien Wood, Cara Stevens, Jerry Verno, Jack Doyle, Heather Bradley, Shirley Burniston, Roger Delgado and Arthur Mullard.

Four sequels followed, starting with Blue Murder at St Trinian’s (1957). It was remade in 2007 as St Trinian’s, with Rupert Everett, with a sequel in 2009, St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold.

George Cole stars as spiv Flash Harry, in one of his nine films with Alastair Sim: Cottage To Let (1941), The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), Bikini Baby (1951), A Christmas Carol (1951), Folly to Be Wise (1953), An Inspector Calls (1954), The Belles of St Trinian’s (1954), The Green Man (1956) and Blue Murder at St Trinian’s (1957).

Cole is one of only two actors (also Michael Ripper) to appear in all four of the original St Trinian’s films: The Belles of St Trinian’s (1954), Blue Murder at St Trinian’s (1957), The Pure Hell of St Trinian’s (1960) and The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery (1966).

A fifth film followed belatedly, The Wildcats of St. Trinian’s (1980), with a different cast and Joe Melia playing Flash Harry.

George Cole died on August 5 2015, aged 90. Adieu, dear departed.

© Derek Winnert

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