The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954) - Comic to Movie #18

"When the girls leave here, it is the merciless world which has to be prepared."

Director

Frank Launder

Cast

Alastair Sim - Headmistress Millicent Fritton/ Clarence Fritton

George Cole - Flash Harry

Joyce Grenfell - Sgt. Ruby Gates

Hermione Baddeley - Miss. Drownder

Lloyd Lamble - Kemp Bird

Richard Wattis - Manton Bassett

Eric Pohlmann - The Sultan of Makyad
Lorna Henderson - Princess Fatima
Vivienne Martin - Arabella

I'm finally coming around to reviewing another obscure comic-based movie. I started this trend back in January of 2020 with the movie "Dick Tracy, Detective" from 1945 up to my last comic-to-movie review, "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" posted last May.  

As I've mentioned before, most of the obscure comic-based movies I've wanted to write about are difficult to come by. Many of them I can't find. So, I've pretty much moved on to other things. However, I haven't given up on this side project entirely. 

To my surprise, I stumbled across one film I have on my comic movie list, and it stars one of my favorite British actors, Alastair Sim. You never know when these things will pop up. 

"The Belles of St. Trinian's" is a 1954 British comedy, directed by Frank Launder, and based on a comic strip called "St. Trinian's School" by British cartoonist Ronald Searle. 

The premise of Searle's cartoon centers on a girl's school in which the female student body are juvenile delinquents while the teachers aren't really any better than the students. 

The cartoon was first published in "Lilliput" magazine in 1941. After the war, Searle started making new cartoons which ran from 1946 to 1952. 

The movie starts with the Sultan of Makyad (Eric Pohlmann) as he enrolls his daughter, Fatima (Lorna Henderson), into St. Trinian's - a fictional all-girls school in the U.K. 

The school is run by headmistress Millicent Fritton (Alastair Sim) who, underneath her posh and slightly gaudy exterior, is just as anti-authoritarian as her students. She's just a little more well-mannered about it. 

Fritton believes the best way to prepare her students for the merciless world is to fight against the authority that makes the world merciless in the first place. Of course, nothing good flows from this. 

The girls certainly aren't squeaky clean. Let's just say many of these girls "know people" - the wrong people. 

The students are more involved in shady dealings rather than educational opportunity. Such schemes take up a lot of the focus over the otherwise faulty curriculum at St. Trinian's. 

Fritton is struggling to keep the doors open as the school faces bankruptcy and debt. 

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education and the local police are investigating the uncouth and criminal behavior they suspect is taking place among the faculty and students.

Police Superintendent Kemp Bird (Lloyd Lamble) assigns P.W. Sgt. Ruby Gates (Joyce Grenfell), who's also Bird's girlfriend, to go undercover as a teacher for hire, infiltrate the school, and report what's going on within its walls. 

Alastair Sim in dual roles as brother and sister
Clarance and Millicent Fritton in "The Belles of St. Trinian's." 

At the same time, the Ministry assigns a new school inspector Manton Bassett (Richard Wattis) to St. Trinian's after the last two inspectors disappeared. What the Ministry doesn't know is that those last two inspectors ended up working for the school. 

Fritton's twin brother, Clarence Fritton (also played by Alastair Sim), stops by the school to see how Millicent is fairing. She tells him that the Sultan's daughter is enrolling which catches his attention. 

Clarence is well aware that the Sultan owns a racehorse which is scheduled to race in a major event soon. 

Seeing this as a hefty income opportunity, he enrolls his own daughter Arabella (Vivienne Martin) into the school with instructions to make friends with Fatima and see what information she can dig up about the Sultan's horse. 

Arabella does as she's told and informs her dad that the horse is most likely to win. 

So, she comes up with a plan of her own. Arabella suggests that she muster up a gang of girls to knock out the stable guy, kidnap the horse, and hide it until after the race. 

Some of the girls fill Millicent in on the Sultan's horse and its likelihood at winning.

Unaware of what her brother is up to, Millicent meets up with an inconspicuous illicit bookie named 'Flash' Harry (George Cole) who's been lurking around the school. She places a bet on the horse hoping it'll bring in the dough necessary to keep the school open. 

Fatima catches wind of the horse-napping lead by Arabella. So, she gathers a gang of classmates to rescue the horse and throw it back into the race. 

When the horse does win, Millicent still has to face a mob of angry parents. What does it matter, though? Her horse won!

Sim doesn't over perform his role as a female headmistress. If there's one thing he masters, it's satire. In this case, it's the educational structure of the British boarding school system. The idea of the rebellious girl, as they're depicted in this movie from nearly 70-years ago, is more facetious than it is now. The comedy and goofiness of it is clearly apparent. It's just as apparent as the comedy behind seeing a man portray a woman for the sake of laughs. 

Today, the portrayal of the "bad girl" is depicted all too often as something to be aspired to and admired because it means doing whatever they want because they can, rules be damned. It's often currently depicted as independence though nothing could be further from reality! 

Sim's character is dainty on the outside, but just as uncouth as the belles themselves. His facial expressions really speak for Millicent. 

His performance definitely falls in a long comedic line of men playing women - Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as Daphne and Josephine in "Some Like It Hot" (1959), Dustin Hoffman as Dorothy Michaels in "Tootsie" (1982) and Robin Williams as Euphegenia Doubtfire in "Mrs. Doubtfire" (1993). In fact, according to a 2020 "Sunday Mail" article by John Dingwall, Sim's performance in "Belles of St. Trinian's" inspired Robin Williams to play Mrs. Doubtfire.  This movie, with its gender swapping comedy, also brings to mind Laurel and Hardy playing themselves and their own sisters in the 1933 comedy short "Twice Two." Audiences often saw this comedy exactly for what it was - absurd. It's hilarious because its out of the ordinary. Laughter is a human reaction to seeing and hearing things that are intentionally nonsensical. Case and point...Alastair Sim playing someone like Millicent Fritton. 

"St. Trinian's School" comic strip by Ronald Searle.

Sim's performance as Millicent Fritton is just as outlandish as these movies are. But Sim's impersonation of a woman doesn't pop out like those other roles. Sim keeps Millicent's appearance refined. Inside, she's impulsive, and will lean towards that impulsiveness when she thinks no one's watching. She can't hide that part very well. 

The humor behind the staff's inadequacy to teach their respective courses is just as comical as Sim dressed as a headmistress. 

For instance, the English teacher speaks with a thick cockney British accent. Best of luck to her English students. 

In another scene, the sports trophies which the girls win go directly to a place of honor - the front window of a pawn shop. 

Sim, as you of course recall, is well known for playing Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1951 British film "A Christmas Carol."

"The Belles of St. Trinian's" stars Hermione Baddeley, who also stars with Sim in "A Christmas Carol" as Mrs. Cratchit. Baddeley is perhaps more well known for playing Ellen in Disney's "Mary Poppins." 

George Cole is also in "A Christmas Carol" as young Scrooge. He and Sim are a bit of a team (sort of) as they appear together in several other British productions such as "Laughter in Paradise" (1951), "Folly to be Wise" (1953), "An Inspector Calls" (1954) and "The Green Man" (1956). Cole was 15-years old when he and Sim starred in their first film together, "Cottage to Let" (1941).

Evidently, Sim took Cole under his wing as a mentor after "Cottage to Let," and helped him shake off his cockney accent. 

"The Belles of St. Trinian's" is the first in a film series which includes "Blue Murder at St. Trinian's" (1957), "The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's" (1960), "The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery" (1966), and "The Wildcats of St. Trinian's" (1980). Sim does have a cameo in the second film of the series as Miss. Fritton. 

A sixth installment simply called "St. Trinian's" was released in 2007. It spawned a sequel in 2009 called "St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold." 

"The Belles of St. Trinian's" is a fun movie, rich in satire, but a little dry in humor. The satire is right up my alley. 

While I've seen bits and pieces of Sim's various performances here and there, I'm very familiar with his role as Scrooge. For me, he is the best Scrooge in film, with George C. Scott following by a hair. I watch this performance of his every December, and I never grow tired of it. Seeing him in something different makes want to explore his career and acting roles more. Thankfully, I found a few other Alastair Sim movies to throw in the "Springtime for Classics" line-up. 

For its place in cinema history, as a satirical comedy, and with Sim's performance in dual roles, "The Belles of St. Trinian's" deserves continued recognition.