Review: 'The Belles Of St. Trinian's' a Gem for Anglophiles

After just reviewing "The Courier," a British spy thriller set in the 1960s, we are going further back in time to the 1950s for "The Belles of St. Trinian's," a classic British farce just released on Blu-ray.�Exactly why Independent film studio Film Movement is resurrecting is unsure.�This quintessential British post-World War II movie will no doubt delight avid Anglophiles, but probably not many other film goers.

Filmed in 1954, with food rationing only just phased out, the country was still quite austere and badly in need of cheering up. The British Lion Film Corporation hired veteran filmmakers Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat to create this comic yarn about an unruly girls' boarding school.�To top it off, they cast leading British classic actor Alistair Sim as both the lovable bumbling headmistress and her wayward gambling brother.

This film probably is not the first one in which the main character in a British film was in drag, but it became one of the most well known and liked in UK film history.

With St Trinian's teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, Headmistress Miss Fritton (Sims) jumps at the chance of taking in a new pupil who is the daughter of a (very rich) Sultan (Eric Pohlmann).�The sultan also plans to stable his racehorses nearby.�That's an important detail, as when the near-delinquent band of teenage pupils discover this they plan to wager a large bet on the next time the horse races. So too does Miss Fritton, who thinks a large win would solve all the school's dire financial needs�

The plot is hardly Shakespeare, but is there simply to give an exceptional cast of stalwart Brit comics and actors a scene or two to shine. They include Joyce Grenfell, Beryl Reid, Joan Sims, Hermione Baddeley, Irene Handl, Renee Houston, and George Cole.

The film was number three at the UK box office that year; more importantly, it was the start of a series of "St Trinian's" sequels, which went on until 1966. Part of the nostalgia is that they recount the days when filmmakers wanted the world to believe that�all Brits, regardless of class, spoke with plummy upper class accents.�As if.

N.B. - "St. Trinian's" aficionados were up in arms when Rupert Everett copied Alastair Sim in a 2009 remake, which was so bad it sank without trace,

"The Belles of St. Trinian's" was released on Blu-ray on February 16 by FiIm Movement.