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Tuesday, June 23, 2020

THE BELLES OF ST. TRINIAN'S (1954)

Seasonally acclaimed for his near-definitive Scrooge in Brian Desmond Hurst’s version of Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL/’51, Alastair Sim was no one-trick pony, finding unexpected range within his eccentric comic persona. Never more so than in this popular whimsy, based on some Ronald Searle drawings (as seen in the credits) about a bankrupt All-Girls school which Sim runs as Headmistress Millicent Fritton while also playing his (that is her) dodgy race-track bookmaker brother Clarence Fritton. The main action involves a foreign student whose rich father has a favored horse in the upcoming derby and Millicent’s big bet to put the school back on its feet, plus an undercover police investigation by new ‘teacher’ Joyce Grenfell. Sydney Gilliat & Frank Launder’s script & direction takes a while to set up the conflicts and start delivering real laughs, but gets by well enough with just ‘the shape of comedy’ to keep us in the mood. That, and Sim’s double assumption of yin-and-yang Frittons proving not only a figure (or two) of fun, but also of unexpected sympathy. A few sequels followed with changeable casting, none seen here.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Apparently Margaret Rutherford was first choice for Millicent, but it surely works better with Sim in modified drag, using little ‘panto’ exaggeration. Though you do keep expecting one of the girls to say, ‘Headmistress, what enormous hands you have!’

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