The WILDCATS of ST. TRINIAN'S (Sheila Hancock, Michael Hordern)

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Derek Malcolm of The Guardian called it "one of the worst films I've ever seen... Please don't do anything like it again. Ever." [5] The girls of St. Trinian's hatch yet another fiendish plot—a trade union for British schoolgirls. Their friend and mentor, Flash Harry, suggests a plan which involves kidnapping girls from other rather more respectable colleges and substituting their own "agents". Thus begins a hilarious, often bloody, battle of wits as the girls meet resistance not only from Olga Vandermeer, their Headmistress, but from the Minister of Education, a private detective, and an oil sheikh. Despite all his desperate efforts to foil the conspiracy, the Minister has to face a growing realisation that the girls' demands will have to be met—for him this will mean a very great and very personal sacrifice. The gauge 0 model train manufacturer ACE Trains produce an "unorthodox" model of a British Schools Class steam locomotive (which were named after British schools), numbered 1922 and named "St Trinneans" (sic). This model is bright pink and has a pair of uniformed schoolgirls as driver and fireman. [14]

Joe Melia obviously worked on perfecting his comedy walk for the part. This is a comic strut with his arms waggling about, rather than George Cole's shifty shuffle, and it does seem very try-hard. He doesn't replicate his predecessor's clothing, replacing his sharp but tasteless gear with a T shirt, jeans and what looks like a sailor's peaked cap - or, more likely, a milkman's one. Well, well, well... St Trinians as political comment. Other reviewers have mentioned this, but it is little wonder that this film flopped in 1980 when it was released upon a trade-union obsessed UK public. The film sends up the trade union movement and strongly critiques any attempt to compromise with the "workers" and meet their demands... a lesson that the 1980's UK government took to heart after the appeasement tactics of the 1970's. Unlike most other reviewers I liked this film: it is a clear and obvious continuation of the original franchise with many character touches lifted directly from the first four films, much more-so than the remakes (updated versions) in 2007 and 2009. I bought this film because of its reputation - here is a UK film so "appalingly bad" that you can't actually buy it in the UK (my copy had to be bought via the USA but from a UK based-supplier!) - and I was prepared to witness a truly atrocious piece of cinema... Perhaps that mindset helped me to see the good in it where others can only see the bad. This film is a product of its time - much as the originals were. Wildcats from 1980 is similar in style to the Carry On movies minus most (but not all) of the smuttiness and bawdy humour. It is still *very* much a children's film - for UK children. The Terror of St Trinians or Angela's Prince Charming (1952; text by Timothy Shy, pen-name for D. B. Wyndham Lewis) In the films the school became embroiled in various shady enterprises, thanks mainly to Flash, and, as a result, was always threatened with closure by the Ministry. (In the last of the original four, this became the "Ministry of Schools", possibly because of fears of a libel action from a real Minister of Education.) The first four films form a chronological quartet, and were produced by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. They had earlier produced The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950), a stylistically similar school comedy, starring Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell, George Cole, Richard Wattis, Guy Middleton, and Bernadette O'Farrell, all of whom later appeared in the St Trinian's series, often playing similar characters.

A couple of actors return to the fold, perhaps out of loyalty to Frank Launder. Thorley Walters appears in his third St. Trinian's film, playing his third different character in the series.Walters played an army officer in the second film and a civil servant in the third. He gets promoted to a more senior role this time, although this is in the Department of Women's Education rather than the Ministry of Education of the earlier films. He is also given a different character name, Culpepper Brown, a character played by Eric Barker in the previous three films. Why director Frank Launder felt the need to return to the old place after a 14-year hiatus is hard to fathom, especially as he could only come up with this lame story about kidnapping and strikes, which is essentially an excuse for some scantily clad sixth-formers and lots of dodgy gags. You can only admire the cast for giving it a go. Joe Melia's Harry is noticeably different from the George Cole version. Melia's Harry is more rough and ready than Cole's and seemingly without his version's shady schemes. He is simultaneously a bolshie trade unionist and, perhaps improbably, a small business owner. Even more improbably, that business is a Chinese restaurant where Melia puts on a funny voice and pretends to be Chinese. The film pokes fun at the British trade union movement which had been responsible for the recent wave of strikes that culminated in the Winter of Discontent.

This film fails - or is rather unintentionally funny - when it lurches over into bizarre racial and gender stereotypes - particularly Harry who is running a "legitimate" Chinese take-away actually disguised as a Chinese man (which he is not) in a truly this-could-only-be-the-70's-or-early-80s sort of way. Or the bimbo fitness instructor (was she actually Swedish or was that just a joke?), or the Dutch headmistress with her box of chocolates - although, to be fair, nobody can follow Alastair Sim as the headmistress and get away with it. Note the underlying theme here: foreigners - welcome to xenophobic England! The acting is more ham-fisted "TV comedy" than "film star" but then again that's also the case with the Carry On films... It is what it is.Barchester and Barset were used as names for the fictional towns near which St Trinian's School was supposedly located in the original films. In Blue Murder at St Trinian's, a signpost was marked as 2 miles to Barset, 8 miles to Wantage, indicating a location in what was Berkshire at the time of filming (transferred to Oxfordshire in 1974}. It would be nice to pretend that The Wildcats of St. Trinian's is not really part of the same series as the earlier St. Trinian's films, especially those from the series' glory days of the 1950s. DVD distributors seem to have taken this amnesiac option and produced St. Trinian'sbox sets comprising only the first four films, The Belles of St. Trinian's, Blue Murder at St. Trinian's, The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's and The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery. make various attempts to break the strike at St. Trinian's and recover the princess, including hiring a private detective (Maureen Lipman) to go undercover at the school as a new chemistry teacher. The school has no fixed motto but has had several suggested ones. The school's motto is depicted in the original movies from the 1950s and 1960s as In flagrante delicto ("Caught in the Act"). This can be seen on the trophy shelf, above the stairs in The Belles of St Trinian's (1954). The lyrics of the original theme song by Sidney Gilliat (c. 1954) imply that the school's motto is "Get your blow in first" [11] ( Semper debeatis percutis ictu primo).

Hop well bunny buddy and spread you words like talcum scattered from a very high balcony falling and spreading wisdom on fools below. The St Trinian's girls themselves come in two categories: the Fourth Form, most closely resembling Searle's original drawings of ink-stained, ungovernable pranksters, and the much older Sixth Form, sexually precocious to a degree that may have seemed alarming to some in 1954. [ citation needed] TheWildcats of St. Trinian's focuses more than usual on the school's younger girls, and they are also played by actresses who look about the right age, of fifteen or so. The film is, in many ways, the most childish and childlike of the series, with basic plotting, simple characterisations and cheerful schoolgirl high jinx. But the sexiness is also pushed further than inprevious entries in the series, and these two elements inevitably clash alarmingly, making this a weird, curdled mixture of childrens' film and sex comedy. You both really are taking the piss now and trolling. That photo with the group of St Trinians girls was in the film and I will even post a clip as proof. As for the age of the sixth form girls on the original films, quite a few were born in the 1920s and early 1930s which would of made them in their early 20s at least. Dilys Laye was born 1934 which would of made her 23 on Blue Murder of St Trinians in 1957 Rosalind Knight was born 1933 which would of made her 24. Another sixth form actress from the same St Trinains film was Patricia Lawrence who was born in 1925 which would of made her 32 years of age. So get your facts right and if you don't believe me then look up Blue Murder at St Trinians on IMDB and stop acting like idiots. BTW when I used the word "posing" I meant they were posing in the film.My Bodyguard (1980) L.C. Peache (Martin Mull) is a hotel manager who moves to Chicago to take on a prestigious new job at… Webb, Kaye, ed. (1959). The St Trinian's Story. London; New York (respectively): Perpetua Books; London House & Maxwell. pp.44–45. OCLC 2898524.