Blue Murder at St. Trinian's

source: Blue Murder at St. Trinian's

Trailer—Blue Murder at St. Trinian's

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Italian Prince Bruno is looking for a wife. Unscrupulous matchmaker Flash Harry offers him the girls of St Trinian's. Headmistress Amelia Fritton and the teachers are all gone. The girls have gone wild. The government sends in the Army to no avail. Harry has a scheme to get the girls on a trip to Italy. This is the second St Trinian's movie. It needs more time for the girls. It also needs to highlight a core group of three or four girls. It's supposed to be their movie and it doesn't hurt to show off these beautiful babes. Hopefully, they can act. The movie spends way too much time with all these old men. As for the army, I don't see the government sending in the army for a bunch of girls. I actually like the Keystone Cops better. They are more in line with a slapstick screwball comedy. I wouldn't mind a movie with the St Trinian's girls versus the Keystone Cops. Of course, the cops can't follow them out of the country. They would hand off the troublesome group to their European counterpart. As it stands, it has its moments of fun, but there could be more fun.

This sequel is even better than the original notwithstanding the fact that Alistair Sim only makes a cameo appearance or that they use the jewels in the ball gag which was used 20years earlier in Boys Will Be Boys.A great cast including Terry Thomas and Joyce Grenfell.The water polo climax is a hoot.

Gap-toothed bounder Terry Thomas joins in the fun for this second cinematic outing for the troublesome girls of St. Trinian's. Thomas plays supreme bounder Capt. Romney Carlton-Ricketts, owner of the (clapped out) buses hired by the infamous girl's school to transport its pupils to Rome, where the sexiest of the sixth-formers have a date with wealthy Italian Prince Bruno (Guido Lorraine), as arranged by the marriage bureau run by cheeky spiv Flash Harry (George Cole). Also along for the trip is Sgt. Ruby Gates (Joyce Grenfell), working undercover to try and catch elusive diamond thief Joe Mangan (Lionel Jeffries), who has disguised himself as Dame Maud Hackshaw, the new headmistress of St. Trinian's (it wouldn't be a British comedy without cross-dressing). It's a slow start and Thomas doesn't show up until midway, when the girls finally set off for Rome, at which point the film definitely picks up in terms of laughs and uproarious fun. After brief visits to several other countries (the most enjoyable involving the St. Trinian's school band playing a swinging tune at a Mozart festival), the unruly mob arrive in Rome, and the hunt is on for Joe's swag (now hidden inside a water polo ball), the reward for which is £10,000. With lots of knockabout comedy performed by a great cast (Hammer regular Michael Ripper and Carry On star Terry Scott also make an appearance), plus plenty of sexy sixth-formers in stockings and suspenders (the more shapely students are all of legal age, so don't feel bad for leering), Blue Murder is another very enjoyable, very British St. Trinian's caper.

Made me laugh out loud - although wasn't sending Joyce Grenfell in under cover again rather a risk? And how did the new Headmistress propose to tame them in the first place?

It's not as funny as the first film but it's still hilarious. The virtual absence of Alastair Sim - who appears in two scenes and has five lines - is certainly a blow to the film but it has a great cast including George Cole (who has a much bigger role than in the first film), Terry-Thomas (who, despite being billed first, does not appear until halfway through the film), Lionel Jeffries, Joyce Grenfell, Michael Ripper, Thorley Walters and Richard Wattis. Sadly, however, this was Sim's last involvement with the "St. Trinian's" films. In spite of Sim's limited screen time, the joke of a man in drag is continued as Jeffries' character Joe Mangan - who shares his name with my mother's first cousin, who is not a diamond thief, thankfully - disguises himself as the new headmistress Dame Maud Hackshaw. While this is obviously an old joke, it is done very well. However, it does not work as well as Sim playing Miss Fritton as I found the idea of a male actor playing a female character much more fun than a male character pretending to be a woman. I imagine that the storyline, which concerns Flash Harry trying to marry off one of the sixth formers to a European prince, was meant as a parody of the marriage of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco the previous year, particularly since one of his other potential brides is a Hollywood actress. The first film focused primarily on the fourth formers' pranks, violence, gambling and general mayhem while this one focuses on the sexual promiscuity of the sixth formers. I have to say that I found the former funnier as schoolgirls blowing up labs with nitroglycerin and attempting to decapitate people is far more unusual! Though the latter was quite daring for a family comedy film in 1957.

This, the second film in the series, opens with Flash Harry in Rome; he is running the 'St. Trinian's Marriage Bureau' and trying to set a wealthy Italian prince up with one of the school's sixth form; the problem is he can't decide which he likes most so tells Harry to bring them all to Rome. This may present a problem as nobody in their right mind would allow the girls of St. Trinian's to travel abroad! Back in England the school is waiting for the new headmistress to arrive from Australia; in the meantime the school is being run by the army… inevitably it is the army that are taking casualties! After some thinking they come up with a plan; they arrange to 'win' a UNESCO school's competition which has a trip round Europe as its prize. Of course things get complicated further; in this case by a diamond robber who tries to take shelter from the police in the school. He ends up going on the trip in a very unlikely role; along with a policewoman who is masquerading as the interpreter. After the opening 'Belles of St. Trinian's' this was a little bit disappointing but still had a decent number of laughs. The main weakness is that for the most part the story focuses on the adults and their schemes rather than the children; and when it does focus on the children it mainly focuses on the clearly twenty something sixth-formers rather than the feral forth formers who are far funnier thanks to their anarchic behaviour. The cast do a solid job and there are a good range of jokes meaning that it can be enjoyed by people of all ages… it is just a shame that we didn't get to see the La Crosse match… just its aftermath, nor do we see what they are shooting out with a stolen Bren gun! If you enjoyed the first St. Trinian's film I'd certainly recommend watching this one too.

BLUE MURDER AT ST. TRINIAN's is the 1957 sequel to THE BELLES OF ST. TRINIAN'S and a definite improvement on the first stodgy movie. Alastair Sim is missing (for the most part), but his absence is more than made up for with a whole host of British comedy stars making this something of an ensemble affair. It's also a globetrotting adventures, taking the unruly pupils out of their school to wreak havoc on the continent instead. BLUE MURDER boasts a decent pace, plenty of workable gags and some inspired direction from Frank Launder, who seems to have had a shot of adrenaline pumped into his arm since he helmed the first flick. There are some great set-pieces here, including the water volleyball match and the robbery, all strung together by a preposterous but amusing narrative. While the likes of George Cole happily return to the fold, the real fun comes from the new stars present: a typical turn for Terry-Thomas and an inspired bit of cross-dressing from Lionel Jeffries, no less. Plenty of familiar faces appear in little roles too, including Terry Scott and Michael Ripper, and as a whole the production has the same lightness of touch and tone as the CARRY ONs of the era.