The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery

Though George Cole stayed put as the wily "Flash Harry", the stylishness and mischief of the Sim/Grenfell films has been replaced by the more crass, innuendo-laden and colour performances from Frankie Howerd and Dora Bryan. Raymond Huntley ("Sir Horace") is the government minister who decides to allocate £85,000 to locate the ailing school and to keep it up to date with the times. Thing is, it's headmistress "Amber" (Bryan) is his bit-on-the-side and she uses the cash to ensure the school becomes little better than a state of the art gambling facility that wouldn't have looked out of place in Atlantic City. Unbeknown to them all though, the old building in which their school is now housed has already been used for a nefarious purpose by some train robbers. Needless to say, they want access to their ill-gotten gains hidden under the floorboards - and when the unruly girls get wise to their plotting, shenanigans galore ensue! Bryan and Howerd both have good comedy coming and a degree of chemistry, but the latter is too domineering as an actor and as character - and as I was never really his biggest fan anyway, I found he rather robbed the thing of any subtlety or hint of comedic sophistication. If you like, "St. Trinians" is now steaming towards "Carry On" territory and leaving behind it the charming boisterousness of previous iterations. It isn't terrible and some of the humour is still quite perky, but these have run their course now, I'd say.

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.

The fourth part of the St. Trinian's themed films is the first to be shot in colour, and also the point where someone should have realised that this series had run out of steam. Based on Ronald Searle's demonic schoolgirls, this outing cribs off of the topical Great Train Robbery of the 60s, retains George Cole as a reassuring presence, while adding Dora Bryan and Frankie Howerd for some acting solidification.

It's not a bad film as such, in fact the last quarter, where a whole host of train shenanigans come into play, is great fun, it's just that it feels tired, less risky, like the makers were hedging their bets to get a box office winner (which came to fruition). Fast framing is a bit of a cheat, Howerd is wasted - or sleepwalking through the film? But Bryan is on hand for a bit of quality while the girls are all boisterous and minxy.

Enjoyable enough for those so inclined, even if it's utterly forgettable come the final credits. 6/10

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.

The Great Train Robbery of 1963 was a crime so audacious it had sufficiently embedded itself in the public consciousness for there even to be a topical reference to SPECTRE's "consultation fee for the British train robbery" at the annual stocktaking scene that opened 'Thunderball'.

Getting into the spirit of the sixties the time was therefore ripe for these desperadoes to be pitted against an even more formidable foe in the form of the girls of St Trinian's; although in reality the original train robbers were a ruthless gang of career criminals that it's hard to believe were really much like an old softy like Frankie Howard.