Leaving a notorious trail of arson behind them, the St. Trinians schoolgirls are always on the move.
Their headmistress, Amber Spottiswood (Dora Bryan inadequately filling Alistair Sim’s shoes) is more than “just friends” with the Minister of Schools, Sir Horace (Raymond Huntley) so armed with a government grant, she re-houses her girls in yet another home, this time at Hamingwell Grange.
What she doesn’t know is that the Great Train Robbers have got there before her and left £2.5 million hidden under the ballroom stage.
It’s a slow-starting but eventually heartily funny skit on the famous train robbery, with the girls of St Trinians eventually driving – literally so, in a slapstick climax with trains running up and down the down and up lines – the gang into chaos and surrender.
Richard Wattis does sterling work as the man from the ministry, but, try as they might, Dora Bryan, Reg Varney and Stratford Johns (providing the booming voiceover) can’t hold a candle to the much-missed Alastair Sim and Joyce Grenfell.
George Cole makes a welcome though brief appearance as Flash Harry. Schoolgirls from a Catholic convent school in Altona, Hampshire were used as extras in the film.
Alfred Askett/Alphonse of Monte Carlo
Frankie Howerd
Gilbert
Reg Varney
Amber Spottiswood
Dora Bryan
Minister (Sir Horace)
Raymond Huntley
Manton Bassett
Richard Wattis
Culpepper-Brown
Eric Barker
Georgina
Portland Mason
Truelove
Godfrey Winn
Noakes
Colin Gordon
Leonard Edwards
Desmond Walter-Ellis
Big Jim
Arthur Mullard
William (Willy the Jelly Man)
Norman Mitchell
Maxie
Cyril Chamberlain
The Voice
Stratford Johns
Chips
Larry Martyn
Marcia Askett
Maureen Crombie
Mabel Radnage
Barbara Couper
Veronica Bledlow
Elspeth Duxbury
Mademoiselle Albertine
Carole Ann Ford
Susie Naphill
Margaret Nolan
Magda O’Riley
Maggie Rennie
Miss Brenner
Lisa Lee
Butters
Peter Gilmore
Gore-Blackwood
George Benson
Liftman
Michael Ripper
Flash Harry
George Cole
Hutch
Aubrey Morris
Mr Parker
William Kendall
Dr Judd
Edwina Coven
Policeman
Terry Scott
Director
Frank Launder
Sidney Gilliat
