Death Goes to School

DEATH GOES TO SCHOOL is a low rent British murder mystery that provides a neat counterpoint to the more popular hilarity of the ST. TRINIANS movies, which were just taking off during the decade. The production company was the little-known Independent Artists, who knocked out a few quota quickies before moving into TV production in the 1960s. The excellent NIGHT OF THE EAGLE is undoubtedly their best (and well-known) production.

This story is a typical murder mystery with a couple of sleuths in an all-girl school, hot on the trail of a murderer who took down the headmistress by strangulation with a scarf. All they have is a footprint to go on, but they soon uncover a hotbed of hatred and false identity, and they must piece together the clues to discover the one responsible.

The film features a leading role for a youthful Gordon Jackson as the no-nonsense detective and the ubiquitous Sam Kydd (who's uncredited for some reason) as his right hand man. The characterisation is slim, and the denouement is rather unremarkable, but the plot remains focused throughout. The all-girl school setting is a good one that Hammer would later use in the likes of LUST FOR A VAMPIRE in the 1970s. This film was shot at the attractive Merton Park Studios in Wimbledon, later the setting for the obscure Michael Gough horror, THE CORPSE.

I could only award this 1953 film 5/10.As the diner guest in Basil Fawlty's restaurant at "Fawlty Towers" said when asked by Basil "Did he like his meal?" he responded, (the way I felt when I saw this film today with my wife, an ex-teacher at a primary school); "Well it was adequate".So I appear to damn the film with faint praise but look at the obvious production budget.In the year of the coronation most British cinemas showed a cartoon, Pathe news, a "B" feature before "the big "A" picture" and I suspect this would have been a "B" picture then.We must therefore expect cheaper relatively unknown actors/actresses and virtually no locational shots filmed outside the studio system.Indeed the only actors I recognised were:Gordon Jackson, Sam Kydd, Beatrice Varley and Barbara Murray, hardly household names then and probably unknown to our American friends who saw this film.

Now having got the carping out of the way did it have some good points?Well yes, the screenwriters managed to keep "whodunnit" right to the end but the motive for murder was not sufficiently evident to me.There would be a job awaiting Miss Shepherd in the police if she wanted to give up music teaching but having teaching in my family, it tends to get into your blood.

This is typical whodunit in the grand tradition of Agatha Christie (but definitely inferior to her best murder mysteries ): a place where a murder was committed and where everyone's a suspect,for everyone bore a grudge against the strangled victim .

And the suspects are all teachers in a girls school , that is people who should be models to their pupils ; using flashbacks is quite derivative,but it allows us to make acquaintance with these women who are not exactly the persons they claim to be .

This is OK murder mystery and the murderess 's motive makes sense .

The scene is a girls school where a pupil discovers the strangled body of her teacher. The dead woman had made many enemies at the school during her stay so there is no shortage of suspects. Scotland Yard arrives with Inspector Campbell (Gordon Jackson) in charge of the investigation. Key to the probe is a small ladies footprint found at the scene of the crime, prompting Inspector Campbell to believe the woman was murdered by another staff member.

The print I saw was clear and crisp and the production values nice for a low budget British mystery. The cast was solid but not spectacular in their work. The screenplay is somewhat staid and lacking an energy. The film tells the story from the viewpoint of the Police Inspector and a young schoolteacher who is under investigation. This crossing of views should deliver a interesting journey, yet it remains quite sedate.

I enjoyed this film. It was nice to see Gordon Jackson in a lead role and it was nice to discover a rare, old British mystery. This is not a lost gem, but a nice film for fans of British mysteries, like myself.

Produced by former director Victor Hanbury, who died the following year shortly after 'fronting' for the blacklisted Joseph Losey on the even more histrionic 'The Sleeping Tiger'. This is also a fascinating artefact from the buttoned-down early fifties (with a conclusion involving assisted suicide that possibly encountered problems with the censor), adapted by Maisie Sharman from her own novel 'Death in Seven Hours' (1952), published under her pseudonym Stratford Davis.

Set in a girls' school in which the repressed passions of both staff & pupils have long ago reached boiling point; murder being the result (an outlet already manifest in the psychotic violence being displayed by the belles of St. Trinian's)!