My childhood memories of sick days and back holidays are filled with St Trinian’s School for Girls and the wonderful series of films that started with The Bells of St Trinian’s in 1954 (just don’t watch the fifth one from the 80s).

The school is full of wonderfully indisciplined tearaways and the debauched indifference of the staff had, I’m sure, many children longing for their own school to be run along similar lines. The traditional idea of female gentility is turned on its head, creating nothing that had been seen before in 1954!

Adapted from Ronald Searle’s cartoons about the school, the plot is simple: using their educational establishment as a front, the outrageous schoolgirls of St Trinian’s get mixed up in a plot to steal a racehorse. In the pantheon of British comedy, the film holds a special place. From the anarchistic, hocky-stick wielding younger girls to the suspender-belted allure of the “older” girls (pretty much all played by 25 year olds).

Searle first invented the horde of unruly schoolgirls in 1941 while serving in World War II, producing a series of ascerbic cartoons for satirical magazines Lilliput and Punch. Theirs was not the innocent public school japery of dodging prep and breaking windows as depicted in Just William. These amoral girls smoke, fight, gamble and generally run riot over their slipshod educational establishment. Creating their own Mafia to the exasperation of headmistress Miss Fritton…

played with motherly exasperation by Alastair Sim.

These whimsical, darkly comic films certainly encapsulate a warm, fuzzy England that… probably never existed… but there is some bite to them. Miss Fritton might not be able to control her girls, but Sim is more than capable of commanding the screen. He-slash-she is the epicentre of the film: a mix of misplaced pride, questionable fiscal habits and creative cunning. Although quite clearly a man in drag, the role is written and played straight. Humour here does not come from a wig or false chest. It comes from from a character with a preternatural ability to sidestep and overlook the various mantraps and madnesses that ricochet around her.

Sim also plays Clarence Fritton, the headmistress’ twin brother, in one of the central comedic hooks of the film. Hot on the trail of insider racing tips — new girl Princess Fatima’s father has top horse Arab Boy running in the Cheltenham Gold Cup — he exhorts his sister to reinstate his oft-expelled daughter Bella. 

We barely see any of the other girls singularly. They fall into two camps: the aforementioned screaming banshees of the fourth form and the over-sexed succubus sixth form. The teaching staff, a dissolute bunch of wrecks, alcoholics, ex-cons and lesbians (because let’s throw that in there), played by a group of wonderful British comediennes, take centre stage instead. Also unforgettable is George Cole as cockney spiv Flash Harry. A silver-tongued rogue who dwells in the bushes in the school grounds, drawing the girls into various nefarious pursuits… please think ‘bootleg gin and racing bets’ rather than anything truly salacious!

For the star of the St. Trinian’s movies is a mythic Englishness of wood panelled public school nicety and eccentric “grown-ups”, completely sabotaged by a pack of street-wise urchins and long-legged lovelies.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane is an enduring example of grotesque LA gothic so legendary from 1950’s Sunset Boulevard. Here too we are both amused by the critique of the entertainment industry and horrified by the monsters it spawns! Yet here we see an even more disturbing and claustrophobic story. Two brilliant actresses bring their real-life rivalry to the screen as sisters and faded Hollywood stars.

Bette Davis plays the eponymous Baby Jane; a former child star of the vaudeville era, now a shrill gargoyle caked in makeup pancake thick. Joan Crawford plays her sister, Blanche, once a plain child who stepped out of her bullying sister’s spotlight to become a 20-something movie star, now a paraplegic trapped upstairs.

And what stairs! Alongside Davis and Crawford they dominate the frame. Indeed within the mansion in which the sisters reside we see only very few rooms and many, many shots of that looming staircase which so effectively divides the upstairs captivity of the paraplegic Blanche from the downstairs lair of the deranged Jane. In this hothouse sibling rivalry turns vicious.

The film begins in Baby Jane’s heyday, when she ruled the vaudeville stage and was famous for saccharine performances of “I’ve Written a Letter to Daddy”- sealed with a kiss and sent to heaven. Offstage the girl becomes a spoiled monster, screaming demands and humiliating the ordinary Blanche. As they reach their 20s Jane’s appeal fades and her films flop just as Blanche becomes a Hollywood queen!

…Until, that is

in a mysterious incident that was probably Jane’s fault, their car crushes Blanche against a gate and snaps her spine.

And thus we come to a rather large plot hole… why on Earth Jane, who most think is to blame for the accident, is put in charge of her sister’s ‘care’ is never really explained. Blanche has just two contacts with the outside world: her telephone and their kindly maid Elvira. Yet in Jane’s venomous hatred she tears the phone from the wall and beats Elvira from the house.

Casting is crucial to the success of the film and it is hard to imagine how director Robert Aldrich convinced the two stars to appear together- their antipathy was widely know. Both noted for being competitive, vain, touchy and later accused of abusing relatives in a tell-all book from a daughter. They had been rivals since the 30s and three decades later starred together perhaps merely to crush the other’s chances of receiving awards. In which case, it was Davis who won.

Her courageous portrayal of the demented, drunken former child star, for which she sheds all vanity and overacts with aplomb won her an Oscar nomination. Crawford plays the calm, kind, reasonable sister (or so we are led to believe). But sadly her twist comes so late that she comes off as rather less interesting.

The impact of “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” was immense in 1962. Today’s audiences, aware of the tell-all stories, don’t perhaps comprehend how thoroughly Crawford, and to a lesser extent Davis, trashed their screen images. Davis sifts her performance towards Jane’s pathological ego, encapsulated in macabre adult performance of “I’ve Written a Letter to Daddy.”

During Jane’s descent into madness, the film becomes less of a ‘camp classic’ and more of a genuine psychological horror story and all the better for it.

Dad’s Army once held- and perhaps still does- the crown of Britain’s favourite sitcom. This film is much a prequel, outlining how the small seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea’s inept Home Guard was brought together, with the indomitable Mainwaring making sure he is the Captain of the platoon. When put on manoeuvres by a visiting Major-General, the men manage to bungle one task after another… but when a group of Germans from a scout plane take the Mayor hostage at the church hall, can the group save the day?!

… did you not hear me describe them as ‘inept’?

Cinematic spin-offs of popular wireless programmes first appeared in the 1930s with the BBC’s Band Wagon although they remained a rarity. After Hammer Horror adapted BBC classic The Quatermass Experiment for the cinema in 1953, there was more of a take-up- although it was slow.

Film adaptations were, at this time, star vehicles for comedians and comic actors, much as the TV shows themselves had been. However, the commercial success of two mid-60s Doctor Who films told producers that audiences were willing to pay big bucks to see their small screen heroes in colour. They were also happy to pay to see more ‘adult’ scenes inserted into the normally family friendly world of primetime viewing. Dad’s Army’s humour is gentle with the odd saucy line. It’s comfortable family friendly viewing with enough parts that go over children’s heads.

Expanding a sitcom into a feature film is often cheaper to produce- its pre-familiarity to the audience cuts down on the advertising budget and the stories are based around small-room situations, even if the location of the room changes. The greatest benefit of these low-budget blockbusters is that they preserve popular television series and introduce modern audiences to great old TV shows. The pace of these films is also much, much faster than that of the old sitcoms, which helps it appeal to modern audiences more used to bang-bang-bang than bang…

bang… bang…

Having been made whilst the original cast was still alive, the film is a record of an excellent ensemble. The national pride in the real people these actors represent is as deeply felt as the well-intentioned mocking of them. Although, in all honesty, the plot resembles merely three episodes smooshed together- as excellent as those episodes may be!

Haven’t got into the TV show yet? You can start with this film!