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

Product Information

years after the last film in the series, The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery in 1966,Frank Launder returned to write and direct one more film featuring the troublesome girls of St. Trinian's School, The Wildcats of St. Trinian's in 1980. 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. Webb, Kaye, ed. (1959). The St Trinian's Story. London; New York (respectively): Perpetua Books; London House & Maxwell. pp.46–48. OCLC 2898524. 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. 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]

It had been fourteen years since the previous St Trinians film. "I didn't want to do another St Trinians unless it could top the previous one," said Launder during filming. "I think this one does." [4] Sidney Gilliat was a production consultant. The Terror of St Trinians or Angela's Prince Charming (1952; text by Timothy Shy, pen-name for D. B. Wyndham Lewis) The musical score for the St Trinian films was written by Malcolm Arnold and included the school song, with words accredited to Sidney Gilliat (1954). [13] In the 2007 film, a new school song, written by Girls Aloud, was called "Defenders of Anarchy". The school also has a fight song. My Bodyguard (1980) L.C. Peache (Martin Mull) is a hotel manager who moves to Chicago to take on a prestigious new job at… Joe Melia replaces George Cole as Flash Harry, Cole having wisely decided to pass on this one. George Cole had just taken on his most famous role, as Arthur Daley in the long running TV series Minder, and so probably thought that he didn't need to do this kind of thing anymore. In his autobiography, Cole says that he was offered the part, but couldn't accept due to other commitments. How very convenient. He must have read the script.

The plot of Wildcats is lame and nonsensical and the film itself seems to be very aware of this. As one of the St. Trinian's girls says, why do they need to go on strike when they don't do any work anyway? The dismal plot might be excusable if the film was funny, but there's barely a joke to be seen, and those that did somehow manage to escape into Frank Launder's script are pretty ancient. Please everyone leave Bunster alone.He's obviously very nice man with big town concerns for all and likes to protect innocents with big fluffy embrace My St Trinians film was going to be a project for a video production course I did at college in 2001 and I mentioned it on this forum at the time. 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. Rosalind Knight also makes her third appearance in aSt. Trinian's film and also plays, as far as can be ascertained, her third different character. Knight was one of the distinctly over-aged schoolgirls in Blue Murder at St. Trinian'sand had a small part as a seamstress in The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's. Twenty years later, in The Wildcats of St. Trinian's, she plays one of the school's frazzled teachers.

During his BBC interview [8] Searle agreed that the cruelty depicted at St Trinian's derived partly from his captivity during World War II but stressed that he included it only because the ignoble aspect to warfare in general had become more widely known.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. Webb, Kaye, ed. (1959). The St Trinian's Story. London; New York (respectively): Perpetua Books; London House & Maxwell. pp.44–45. OCLC 2898524. Pupils of the infamous St Trinian’s establish the first branch of the ‘Union of British Schoolgirls’, then kidnap the daughter of a wealthy Arab prince (played by future Eurovision non-winner Frances Ruffelle) in an attempt at gaining recognition.

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]In the first two films, St Trinian's is presided over by the genial Miss Millicent Fritton (Sim in drag), whose philosophy is summed up as: "In other schools girls are sent out quite unprepared into a merciless world, but when our girls leave here, it is the merciless world which has to be prepared." Later other headmistresses included Dora Bryan in The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery. This time the St. Trinian's girls decide to form a union, so that they can go on strike. To increase their bargaining power, their partner in crime, former school boot boy Harry (Joe Melia), encourages them to infiltrate the top schools in the country, so that they can form a "closed shop" and bring all of the other schools out on strike as well.