| |
Nabaza.net-The MarketPlace - Belles of St Trinian's
|
List Price: $9.98
Our Price: $39.79
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Republic Pictures
Starring: Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell, George Cole, Hermione Baddeley, Betty Ann Davies
Directed By: Frank Launder
|
Average Customer Rating:  
|
|
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786303234397
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 6303234399
Label: Republic Pictures
Manufacturer: Republic Pictures
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Republic Pictures
Release Date: 1997-02-03
Running Time: 87
Studio: Republic Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: 1955
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Terrible tykes, gin and horses, and the great Alastair Sim as Millicent Fritton, headmistress at St. Trinian's
Comment: Choose your fate: The terrible tykes of the fourth form, playing practical jokes that involve axes, or the...ummm...well-developed girls of the sixth form, who discovered some time ago cigarettes, gin, sex and how easily men can be led astray. The problem is that one set comes with the other. They are all there at St. Trinian's, that remarkably easy-going English school for girls led by headmistress Millicent Fritton (Alastair Sim). As Miss Fritton is fond of pointing out, "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." Miss Fritton sounds something like a melding of Julia Child and Eleanor Roosevelt, and definitely has Sim's droll and deadpan comic genes.
In The Belles of St. Trinian's, a sly, chaotic comedy from the team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, St. Trinian's is, as usual, on the brink of financial disaster. Salvation may be at hand, however, when a rich sheik sends his daughter to join the fourth form and receive a proper English education. The sheik also is a horse owner and one of his prize racers, Arab Boy, is being trained near the school for a race. It's only a matter of time before the fourth-form girls form a racing pool and bet heavily on Arab Boy, with Miss Fritton adding to the pool what funds the school has left. (Much of the fourth-form girl's money comes from the gin they make in chemistry, then bottle and lower by rope to Flash Harry (George Cole), a Cockney fixer, for distribution. "It's got something...I don't know quite what," says Miss Fritton on sampling the stuff, "but send a few bottles up to my room.")
Miss Fritton, however, has a brother, Clarence Fritton (who, by some coincidence of casting, also is Alastair Sim), a bookmaker who not only has placed a bundle on another horse, but who also has a daughter. And he has placed the precocious Arabella in the sixth form to keep him informed. Soon the sixth form has kidnapped Arab Boy, the fourth form has taken the horse back, Flash Harry has joined forces with Miss Fritton, the sixth-form girls are determined that Arab Boy will not leave the second floor of St. Trinian's, Clarence and his Homburg-wearing gang have arrived, parents are driving up for Parent's Day and the Ministry of Education has arrived in the person of a very proper inspector. Total war breaks out at St. Trinian's. It's hard to say which is more dangerous, the African spears or the flour bombs.
Alastair Sim as Millicent Fritton turns in a tour de force performance. Miss Fritton is a tall woman with a stately bosom, fond of long gowns with embroidered lace and Edwardian hats with lots of feathers. She takes everything in stride, even a fourth-former pounding at something in chemistry class and, after hearing an explosion a few minutes later, the results. "Oh dear. I told Bessie to be careful with that nitro-glycerine!" She is firm in believing that St. Trinian's is "a gay arcadia of happy girls." Sim was one of Britain's great eccentric actors. Other than the sheer chaos of all the little (and not so little) girls doing terrible things, he delivers much of the film's pleasure.
The Belle's of St. Trinian's is not out on DVD but the VHS can be found. The picture is clean and crisp. There is a Region 2 DVD set of four of the St. Trinian's movies due out in the UK in November. This one, the first, is by far the best. Sim makes a brief appearance in the follow-up, Blue Murder at St. Trinian's, and is absent in the others.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Funny Movie
Comment: "The Belles of St. Trinians" is a movie that is worth your while to dig up and watch. It's been about 50 years since it was made, and it's still funny. The humor (one should know) comes from gags about alcoholic beverages, gambling, dishonesty, and well, more dishonesty ... all involving a private girls school in England.
The girls are sharp operators ... clever little imps with an infectious enthusiasum for playing pranks. Even the head mistress of the school is fair game.
This lady, Millicent Fritton, is played by the very excellent (and very male) British actor Alastair Sim. He does double duty by also playing "Millie's" evil brother Clarence. He (Alistair Sim) does a great job playing Millie ... carrying it off with quite a flair ... as "she" outwits not only her brother, the ministry of education, the police, and the school's instructors, but even the girls themselves.
The gist of the story is this: The girls have bet all their money on a horse (a sure winner) in an upcoming race. Millie gets wind of "the investment" and, in an attempt to save the school from foreclosure, bets all of the school funds on the same horse. Clarence (Millie's brother) has a substantial sum of money bet on a different horse, and, to ensure its winning, decides to kidnap (horse-nap?) the girls' horse ... forcing the girls to spring into action ... to avert the potential disaster.
The little actresses who play the girls are ... wonderful. They inject the most fun into the movie. George Cole performed with Alistair Sim in "A Christmas Carol" four years earlier. He was a little green in that movie, but here, as "Flash Harry", he is ... perfect ... a joy everytime he's in a scene. In fact, there are good comedic performances turned in by the entire cast. Hermione Baddeley is here, but she is almost unrecognizable as Miss Drownder the school's English grammar instructor.
There are some memorable lines:
Millicent: (To the incoming students) 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.
Millicent: (Sampling a chemistry class, um, experiment) It's got something ... I don't know quite what ... but send a few bottles up to my room.
Harry: She's right ... we don't want our good name dragged through the mud.
Millie: The old girls!! And all in primed condition.
The Sultan: ... to begin by presenting this cup for good conduct, which I understand has not been presented since 1927.
But this movie is an enjoyable farce ... and a romp for us viewers ... where the comedy comes at us without much of a lull ... just a fun movie to watch ... but one that might perhaps require a little explaining to children who join in to view it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Wild schoolgirl hijinks
Comment: "The Belles of St. Trinians" is an old-fashioned wacky school comedy, full of wild kids and clueless adults. Set in an English private school, the girls of St. Trinians might just have been the first to establish this familiar film genre. The girls are VERY wild, sometimes shockingly so, brewing up gin in chemistry class and then selling it through a local bootlegger, Flash Harry, or winning field hockey games by putting the opposing team and the referee in the hospital by whacking them with their hockey sticks.  In light of current "PC" times, kids in films just aren't this wild anymore. Plenty of the humor just comes from seeing these kids in action. Alistair Sim does good service in his double role as the corrupt Clarence and his twin sister, the optimistic yet still slightly corrupt Mrs. Fritton. The other adults in this film range from clueless to incompetent, such as the Board of Education inspectors who like the school so much they just never seem to leave. "The Belles of St. Trinians" is a bit dated, but that is part of its fun as well.
Customer Rating:
Summary: An innovative British comedy
Comment: Alastair Sim reprises, after a fashion, his barmy schoolmaster role from the 1950 film, "The Happiest Days Of Your Life," only this time he's playing Margaret Rutheford's character, performing in drag as Miss Fritton, a dotty headmistress whose belief in a liberal, unstructured education has led to complete lawlessness and havoc at her private girl's school. Sim also plays Miss Fritton's twin brother, a crooked bookie who locks horns with his sister over a rigged horse racing scam. The joy of this movie comes from the anarchic behavior of the ill-mannered, blithely menacing students, who are surly, dishevelled and perhaps a bit worldly beyond their years. (The film was based on a series of drawings by cartoonist Ronald Searle, sort of a "Pippi Longstocking" meets "Lord Of The Flies" scenario...) There are also several choice character roles: Sims' gender-bending aside, there is a magnificent performance by George Cole, as "Flash Harry", a fast-talking but quite loveable con artist who helps sell the bootleg liquor the Fourth Form girls make in chemistry class, and Joyce Grenfell as a horsey, inept policewoman who is sent in undercover to find out just what's going on at St. Trinian's. As with many postwar British comedies, the underlying theme is of a crass new age threatening to overtake the decorum of the old, established order, as typified by the hypocrisies of the adults in the film (Sim and the slovenly, venal school staff) and the more likeable slickness and unapologetic hucksterism of the Flash Harry character. The depictation of the chaotic, unruly, cigarette smoking girls -- American style juvenile delinquents! Egad! -- is also pretty funny. The film runs at a brisk, slapstick pace, and the humor is often rather obvious and unsubtle, but when it hits the mark, it's a delight.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A classic
Comment: Before the Goon show and Monty Python there was the Trinian series. Examples of innovative British comedy. Some of the later Trinian films are real stinkers. This is the original and it is simply one of the funniest films ever made-period. If you watch this and the 1951 version of "A Christmas Carol" and do not come away convinced that Alastair Sim was one of the great actors of all time, there's no hope for you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | |
