Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery (4 Stars)

This is the fourth St. Trinian's film, made in 1966. It's the first film in the series to be made in colour. It's also the most anonymous of the films, as far as the girls are concerned. What I mean is, there are beautiful sixth form girls presented as eye candy, but none of them are named. Not one. The same is true of the younger girls in the school. They're just an anonymous rabble. The film is all about the adults, and the girls are just extras. In contrast, all of the teachers are introduced one by one with on-screen text, even though some of them are barely seen later in the film.

The film opens with a train robbery. I feel tempted to call it the train robbery, because it closely mirrors the Great Train Robbery of 1963. The amount of cash stolen is repeatedly referred to as two and a half million, in comparison with the 1963 robbery in which £2.6 million was stolen. (That would be worth £55 million today). The robbers hide the money under the floorboards in an empty mansion called Hamingwell Grange. Shortly after this the school is bought by St. Trinian's, presumably because their last school has been burnt down yet again.

When the robbers come to collect the cash, assuming the school is empty, they're chased away by the schoolgirls. Professional criminals are no match for the girls of St. Trinian's. In order to spy on the school and pick the best moment, the robber's ringleader enrols his two daughters in the school as spies.

The robber is Alphonse, played by Frankie Howerd. In the first half of the film we see a lot of his daughters, but then they disappear completely. Even though they're no longer needed for the plot, it would have been more logical to see them among the girls in the later scenes.

The art teacher is played by Margaret Nolan. She works as a stripper in the school holidays. It would be too boring sitting at home for six weeks doing nothing.

The French teacher works as a French model in the school holidays. I dread to ask. She also makes a few pounds on the side as a fortune teller. In case you don't recognise the actress, it's Carol Ann Ford, looking sexier  than she ever did in "Doctor Who".

An actor everyone can recognise is Reg Varney, three years before he appeared in the TV series "On the Buses". He plays one of the robbers, and he enters the school on parents day pretending to be a waiter.

Reg isn't a very good waiter. The plates keep slipping out of his hands. That's not surprising when he's surrounded by such provocative schoolgirls.

The film has frequent upskirt shots, but always very brief. When the film was in the cinema people would hardly have noticed. Those were the days before DVDs which could be paused.

Here's just one screenshot of two girls crawling underneath a train. Black underwear? Is that really the regulation school uniform in private schools? I'll have to ask what English schoolgirls wear today.

Here's an actor playing a role that would be impossible in today's atmosphere of political correctness. Leon Thau has blacked his face to play a Pakistani porter. His accent is ridiculously exaggerated, but let's give him credit: he was an excellent comedian.

I wouldn't say this is a great film, but it's a fun comedy romp, especially when it breaks down into slapstick in the last 20 minutes. It could have been made better by featuring the girls more, and I would have preferred them to be sexier. But that's just me.