Blue Murder at St. Trinian's (3½ Stars)

Maidens of St. Trinian's, gird your armour on,
Grab the nearest weapon, never mind which one!
The battle's to the strongest, might is always right,
Trample on the weakest, glory in their plight!

"St. Trinian's! St. Trinians!" Our battle cry,
"St. Trinians! St. Trinian's!" will never die.

Stride towards your fortune, boldly on your way,
Never once forgetting there's one born every day.
Let our motto be broadcast, "Get your blow in first",
She who draws the sword last always comes off worst.

This is the second St. Trinian's film, made three years later in 1957. The headmistress, Miss Fritton, is in prison for an unspecified offence. Most of the teachers have fled. The army has been called in to keep order until a new headmistress has been appointed. The only person of authority in the school is the con man Harry, who always has the girls' best interests at heart, as long as there's a profit in it. He's running a marriage agency for the sixth form girls, selling them to rich men around the world. Prince Bruno of Italy wants a wife, but he can't make his mind up which one from the photos alone. He wants the whole sixth form to visit him in Rome.

All the girls love Harry, and he loves them. Taking so many schoolgirls to Italy would cost a fortune, so he hatches a plan. There's a contest sponsored by UNESCO for the country's best school to travel across Europe. He tells the girls to break into the Ministry of Education and swap the papers. They win the prize. Not just the sixth form, the whole school can travel to Rome, via Paris, Munich and Florence.

Then things get complicated. Joe Mangan, a diamond thief, is on the run from the police, so he hides out in the school, because his daughter is in the sixth form.

This is Joe's daughter Myrna. She's Daddy's little girl.

Joe disguises himself as the new headmistress so that he can get out of the country. He wants to leave the tour bus as soon as they reach Calais, but the girls blackmail him to remain with them until the end of the trip. What they don't know is that he's carrying diamonds with him that are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The girls welcome their new headmistress, but they never let him out of their sight.

The film starts off on a high note. The skirts are shorter than in the first film, and for the first half hour we only see the older girls. As the film progresses we see more and more of the younger girls. There are less adults than in the first film, although I have to admit that the ever-present Harry gets on my nerves. He's the ringleader for all the mischief that the girls get up to. Can't they act by themselves?

How does Harry manage to keep his cool in front of girls like these?

And what about Virginia, played by the glamour model Norma Sykes? She was prominently featured in the posters and promotional material for the film, but she only had a non-speaking role. I've read that she was very famous in England, mainly due to her appearance as a hostess on a game show. That was before my time.

It's a reasonable film, but it's very dated. Nevertheless, I still intend to watch all the St. Trinian's films.