The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery (1966)

★ 6.1 1h 33m IMDb

Comedy Crime Family

The all-girl school foil an attempt by train robbers to recover £2.5 million hidden in their school.

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Cast

Frankie Howerd as Alphonse of Monte Carlo / Alfred Askett Died 1992 · York, Yorkshire, England, UK Francis Alick Howard, better known by his stage-name Frankie Howerd, was an English comedian and comic actor whose career spanned six decades..

Dora Bryan as Amber Spottiswood Died 2014 · Parbold, Lancashire, England, UK Dora May Bryan OBE was an English actress of stage, film and television. Born Dora May Broadbent, her career began in pantomime as a child actor. In World War II she joined the ENSA in Italy to entert...

George Cole as 'Flash' Harry Died 2015 · Tooting, South London, England, UK George Edward Cole, OBE (22 April 1925 - 5 August 2015) was an English film and television actor with a career which ran from the 1940s to the first decade of the twenty first century. Best known in...

Reg Varney as Gilbert Died 2008 · Canning Town, London, England, UK Varney was born in Canning Town, then in Essex but now part of the London Borough of Newham. His father worked in a rubber factory in Silvertown and he was one of five children who grew up in Addingto...

Raymond Huntley as Sir Horace, the Minister Died 1990 · King's Norton, Worcestershire, England, UK Horace Raymond Huntley (23 April 1904 – 15 June 1990) was an English actor who appeared in dozens of British films from the 1930s to the 1970s. He also appeared in the ITV period drama Upstairs, Downs...

Director Sidney Gilliat

Cast Frankie Howerd, Dora Bryan, George Cole, Reg Varney, Raymond Huntley, Richard Wattis, Portland Mason, Terry Scott, Eric Barker, Godfrey Winn

John Chard 6/10 Mar 25, 2016

Jolly Hockey Sticks Part 4.

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

CinemaSerf 6/10 Nov 06, 2022

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.