Despite the possibilities teh re make of The Belles of St.Trinians contains no spanking.
However it is a marvellous film well made in many respects.
The plot is vamped up and there is some great camp acting from Stephen Fry.
The plot involves St.Trins in conspiring to steal a painting from the National Gallery in our old friend Trafalgar Square London(Remember The Uks leading "Upskirt"venue?)
True to form we get full size cinematic upskirt 5 minute sequence to loud rock music shot in the Square as a bevy of girls in gymslips walking up to The National Gallery!This can only be a sly dig at conventional photographic morals?
The only discernible "S" moments were a short scene of the French Teech brandishing a whippy baton pointer in a French class in a tight leather skirt but that was all.
Other than that there is a suprising lack of suggestion or even any eroticism which makes the film tasteful and more action and suspense orientated.
The Producers obviously realised that it was too easy to spoil by having ogled thigh or Sun style models.
The film lambasts the establishment with the straight laced Schools Minister attempting to shut down St.Trins but is foiled and out foxed eventually accidentally exposing himself to the worlds media full frontal.
The end resonates with a original theme tune of St.Trins proclaiming Punk anarchy in a quite frightening portrayal of what may be the atittude of todays sink schools of defiance.
the mickey is taken out of several leading name Public Schools including Eton,Bedales and Ampleforth.

BOZO

We'll have to disagree on the merits of this remake.

There is certainly nothing of CP interest in it-though there was absolutely none in the originals, either.

I would only add anyone associated with this film deserves sufficient detentions for the rest of their careers. To anyone who grew up with the originals, the remake has the attraction of discovering a week-old pile of cat's sick in the corner-been there and done that t-shirt,too!


Steve M

They interviwed three of the ladies from the original school in Edinburgh from which the films were inspired on the BBC a few mornings ago. Interestingly, they spoke with upper-class English accents, and when asked about it, they said that it was how they were taught, despite the school's Scottish heritage.
No mention of CP on the dear old Beeb of course. the thirty-something who run it these days have probably never heard of it!
They did say though, that discipline was strict, and that you did not misbehave vey often. I think we can draw the obvious conclusions from that!

From memory, one of the original St. Trinian’s films did include a scene with one Mistress wielding a cane. I believe the Mistresses were attempting to quell a riot by the girls.

Ronald Searle created at least one cartoon with a Mistress holding a cane.

In the original Penguin book depicting the cartoons and published in the 1950s, (which has recently been republished), a photograph of Alistair Sim, dressed in drag as the headmistress, is used as the frontispiece. She/he is flexing a cane.

MILLICENT

I believe in the original film, Belles of St Trinians, the teachers charge the fourth form, whom are barricaded upstairs & are repulsed;not by what they see, but by ink & chalk bombs etc.

They then break through when the Old Girls arrive!

I'm fairly sure that at least two or three of the teachers in that first charge are armed with canes, indeed, as Alistair Sim would have said. The Old Girls have no need of such crudities; they are collectively chosen for faces that would stop a clock, let alone brook no argument!

I also have to say the first film was by far the best and will now have to go and buy it on DVD on Amazon. Your vivid memory will also force me to review the new cinematic catastrophe for them!


Steve M

Bozo – I go with Steve on this one - even as a corporate freebie it didn’t ease the disappointment of this re-make. Nothing compares to the nostalgic original, The plot there, but falls flat on more than one occasions the odd Americanism creeps in makes matters worse. Even Head Girl Kelly brandishing her whippy pointer in tight leather skirt looking more like something out of Madam Tusaudes would do little to raise hopes for CP fans. Whereas the original with superb acting, captured an audience of all ages and gender , thirty years down the line this re-make will be well forgotten.

Ketta

KETTA

You are far too young to remember the original, of course, but you did attend such an establishment.

The problem with the present pile is that anarchy in the classroom is somewhat more common than in 1954,when The Belles first rang out. Equally, it doesn't have the dominating John Belushi that made National Lampoon's Animal House succeed in recreating an unpleasant year(1962) in the fat complacency and conformity in the US of A.

Rock n Roll High School(1978),amusing pastiche of school movies or not, is also themed around the singularly three-chord goodtime punk of the Ramones, and is set in an amusingly useless high school where success in academia or on the sports field remains a word in a dictionary.

It does also have PJ Sholes looking ****able and spankable by degrees, but that is not the reason I've got it on DVD.

OK, it is! I'm a bloke, for God's sake!

It would make MUCH more sense to invert the plot-turn a kitchensink comp into a pink and fluffy PC gels' academy and then have the Old Girls revive anarchy in the UK.

The other thing I forgot to mention to you & Bozo is to have another look at the sequels-forget Train Robbery, which was much later(1966 compared to 1956 & 57 respectively)and was just a mess.

Blue Murder at & Pure Hell of just do not have the oomph of Belles. It was like a great situation comedy being made into a film in BM & PH.

That was because a one-joke situation had been stretched to its' limits in Belles. And that limit was probably beyond the range of childhood catapults, or navy-blue knicker elastic combined.

Hence the limp and drooping sequels!!


Steve

Great pic as usual Ketta!Not sure if shes the same French teacher though-was peeping in door from rear in film and skirt appeared real leather-maybe 2 such.?
Dont know-I felt liberated when seeing the film.
The plot and soundtrack was rocking in a juvenile way
the opening sequences of the rolls royce and all the wierd school stuff
happening made me feel yes this is it!
Freaks CAN be accepted
the chaotic rebellion made me feel yes this is the way millions of media types are in Britain today-rebellious and defiant with their own anti establishment agenda
it made me feel less guilty.
when they started taking the mickey out of eton etc ("were the best stuff the rest"),egg bombed the coach,etc etc thought yes thats how it really is at public school all disconnected competetion.
i did find the anti religious scenes dross though and inappropriate.
this school closely resembles the anarchic state school i described in previous posts-they dont give a stuff knocking teeches over etc.
so St.Trins 2 seems very of its time