The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery

I love this st trinions so fun you have fun with the train ride at end and you dont want it to end. But like carry on films the best is back door for rubbish and expensive cinema price you hope for good again.

I really wasn't expecting to enjoy this movie. After all, the previous film in this series, 'The Pure Hell Of' was a bit of a disappointment and the question was, six years later, could this movie get the series back on track? The answer is yes, 'The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery', after a slightly slow start, is a very funny movie, the funniest in the series since 'Blue Murder'. Learning from the mistakes of 'Pure Hell', this movie returns to the school-based comedy that we all know and love. It has its faults, of course. For example some of the series' most familiar faces are absent (there is no Alistair Sim or Joyce Grenfell, for example), while a sadly ill-looking Eric Barker appears only for a few seconds. But all in all, the influx of new faces (including the likes of Frankie Howerd and Dora Bryan) works to the movie's advantage. Also the rail track capers that conclude the movie are very funny indeed. The less said about the awful theme song, the better I think, but any movie that contains the line 'Knock them about democratically' deserves to be remembered.

The premise doesn't seem bad, that the school is relocated due to the fires and a group of thieves want to recover money hidden in the place where the new school is. However, it doesn't feel like a St. Trinian's film to me. Its the only one in color and of the characters from the other films only Harry is still there. There is no more Sargeant Gates, which would have helped. The movie goes along at a decent pace and Frankie Howerd is, of course, a good comic actor, but the film is watchable only because its part of the series not because it is such a great stand alone film. See it if you want to complete your watching of the original St. Trinian's films, but otherwise it is not essential viewing.

A lesser St Trinian's film, this does benefit from scatty Dora Bryan as the headmistress; Raymond Huntley as her MP beau; Richard Wattis and co as men from the ministry; and Frankie Howerd, Reg Varney, Arthur Mullard and others as train robbers. If you have seen the other films, you know the formula. The St Trinian's schoolgirls are little terrors who frighten the life out of authority and everyone else. The teachers are boozers, smokers, fighters, and gamblers. Put these together and the plot will sizzle. Not as good as the others, and drags a bit towards the end, but it is a fun film which diverts for at least an hour.

In my review of PURE HELL OF ST TRINIANS I mentioned that the comedy is very much dated when watched today . I guess the idea with THE GREAT ST TRINIANS TRAIN ROBBERY was to update it to the 1960s : It references the great train robbery of 1964 ( Interesting to note the connection with THUNDERBALL ) , it mentions " a new Labour government correcting the mismangement of 13 years of Tory misrule " and the movie is shot in colour with a new title tune . However despite these attempts to make it accessible to a cinema audience in 1966 ( Who would have gone to the cinema to watch a black and white movie ? ) this film suffers from the other failings of the series - it's badly plotted with characters and situations coming and going with little focus . like the other movies featuring the pupils from hell there is little screen time given to the eponymous girl pupils who seem to be there as a plot device more than anything else and even in 1966 native audiences would have probably found the parochial humour too British when compared to American financed Brit productions like DR NO , ZULU and ALFIE thereby dating this movie as soon as it came out

When the Tories are beaten by Labour, public servants rejoice at the potential for public schools to be scrapped (in particular - St Trinians). However the new Minister for Education gives them a massive grant instead - although his Government don't know that he is helping his mistress to set back up the criminal exploits of the school. Trouble starts though, when the school is resituated in a building where train robbers have hidden their loot. In full colour and without the original girls of the series, this film looks to have potential simply on the basis of the talented cast involved. The plot is silly, but when did that ever matter with this stuff? The plot gets a little laboured at the start in the effort to reopen the school and place it in the middle of a train robbers' plan. This doesn't matter too much as it does eventually break away into a more free-flowing chase at the end. However, despite their being plenty for the film to do, it is surprising just how little actually happens, how little impact the film makes and how little any one character has to do. This is most evident in the waste of good comedy actors. The loss of two or three main girls in the cast has reduced the girls to just an unidentifiable mass of unruly girls. This is a problem to start with, but should have been covered by the talented cast. Sadly none really have much to do and much to work with. Frankie Howerd has a few good lines but nowhere near his ability, Cole does his usual stuff but has almost nothing to do. Terry Scott shows his face for about 3 lines, while others like Huntley, Bryan, Varney and so on are really not well used. Overall this film starts slow and poorly however, like a train, slowly builds up a reasonable head of steam for an energetic conclusion. That said, it isn't really very funny and you can't help but watch and spend more time looking at the missed potential.