Blue Murder at St. Trinians

Production: British Lion. Director Frank Launder; Producer Frank Launder, Sidney Gilliat; Screenplay Frank Launder, Val Valentine, Sidney Gilliat; Camera Gerald Gibbs; Editor Geoffrey Foot; Music Malcolm Arnold; Art Director Allan Harris
Crew: (B&W) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1958. Running time: 86 MIN.
Cast: Terry-Thomas George Cole Joyce Grenfell Lionel Jeffries Lisa Gastoni Sabrina

The pic packs in quite a lot of yocks, but the humor is a bit obvious and the string of slapstick situations pinned on to a thin, yet complicated, story line does not add up to a very satisfactory comedy film.

There are all the obvious gags, with the ‘awful schoolgirls’ of Ronald Searle’s cartoons behaving like little fiends. The school is without a headmistress and the army has been called in to keep order.

By cheating, the girls have won an Unesco essay contest with first prize a coach trip to Rome. The girls are anxious to go in order that one of them be married off to Prince Bruno of Italy. Further complications are caused by one of the girls’ fathers pulling off a diamond robbery. To get him out of the country he poses as the headmistress of St. Trinians.

Trip enables Lionel Jeffries to pose as a woman, Joyce Grenfell to pose as an interpreter though actually a police woman, and Terry-Thomas to steal the film as a shady boss of a coach firm. The older girls of St. Trinians are easy on the eye but it seems stupid wasting Lisa Gastoni on this sort of tripe.

Jump to Comments