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

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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. I can't claim to be an expert on THE ST TRINIAN series . I have some vague notion that it's about some hellcat girl pupils which in today's political climate would probably never been considered as a film series 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]

The concept was very clever and although I still enjoyed it, I would have liked to have seen more jokes and perhaps, as with the last film, another 15-20 minutes to help the pace and give room for extra pranks and plots. There's just something utterly magical about the first three St. Trinian's films. Almost every character in them is played by an actor recognisable from over fifty other British films of the time, and they frequently have the best cast lists of comic talent ever seen in a British comedy. Quite often a film with a cast this distinguished can turn out to be a grave disappointment (such a fate befell efforts like "The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins", in which most of the effort on the part of the film-makers seemed to have been in actually recruiting the actors, rather than giving them anything worthwhile to perform). However, "Pure Hell", like "Belles" and "Blue Murder" before it, has a script and a story good enough to support the weight of these amassed comedy greats, most of whom you'll probably never have heard of. They're usually actors who appeared in loads of films of the period, and you'd never have thought of making a film at the time without them, but who never became stars in their own right - chaps like Raymond Huntley and Nicholas Phipps (most memorable in "Doctor in Love" as the frankly spiffing Dr. Cardew). Those actors who, if you're a vintage comedy connoisseur like me, you'll see and then go "Ahhh, yes!" 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.

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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. Webb, Kaye, ed. (1959). The St Trinian's Story. London; New York (respectively): Perpetua Books; London House & Maxwell. pp.46–48. OCLC 2898524. A poem in one of Searle's books called "St Trinian's Soccer Song", by D. B. Wyndham Lewis and Johnny Dankworth, states that the motto is Floreat St Trinian's ("May St Trinian's Bloom/Flourish"), [12] a reference to the motto of Eton ( Floreat Etona—"May Eton Flourish").

Webb, Kaye, ed. (1959). The St Trinian's Story. London; New York (respectively): Perpetua Books; London House & Maxwell. pp.44–45. OCLC 2898524. This is a repeat of Alastair Sim's line as Miss Fritton in The Belles of St. Trinian'sthat "I cannot afford to have continual arson about in my school!" 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.

Oh, and as for the schoolgirls, though they don't appear that often (and when they do it's usually the fourth formers, played by child actors), there are a few "sixth formers" dotted about - the glamorous twenty-something year old actresses dressed in uniforms and the shortest skirts you're ever likely to see. The initial courtroom scene contains a slow pan up the most gorgeous of the lot, with her... legs, and everything, and my word, by jove, indeed. Ha ha. The gauge 0 model train manufacturer ACE Trains produce an "unorthodox" model of a British Schools Class steam locomotive (which were named after British schools), numbered 1922 and named "St Trinneans" (sic). This model is bright pink and has a pair of uniformed schoolgirls as driver and fireman. [14] 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. Oh, thank God for the girls of St. Trinians. These little hellions know how to make me laugh out loud. Their creator Ronald Searle was a satirist, and Pure Hell is one of the more satirical outings for the young ladies; thanks to the writing talents of Gilliat and Launder. There are plenty of asides and snide japes to keep you giggling, however, some of them are of the time and may fall flat with today's younger crowd. But the dancing civil servants always busts my gut. You have to love them.

For the 2007 film, see St Trinian's (film). For the actual progressive school, see St Trinnean's School. Cover of a modern re-issue of St Trinian's drawingsPlease feel free to visit my Just For Laughs list to see where I ranked The Pure Hell Of St Trinians. The Terror of St Trinians or Angela's Prince Charming (1952; text by Timothy Shy, pen-name for D. B. Wyndham Lewis) It's a quaint British comedy and I'm feeling a trifle warm just thinking about. I should have taken the tablets. 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.