Lessons from the past

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 15, 2002

Contemporary moviemakers leaven their comedies with social commentary --more often than not a recipe for confusion--which is one reason film students should search video stores for old-school productions such as The Belles of St. Trinian's. A British madcap adventure based on Ronald Searle's cartoon creations, St. Trinian's never takes itself seriously, yet manages to blend farce and fantasy into a delicious stew of delightful nonsense.

It helps that Alastair Sim turns in two superb performances as St. Trinian's festooned headmistress, Millicent Fritton, and her flimflamming brother, Clarence Fritton. And character actor George Cole is perfect as Flash Harry, an amicable rouge who makes a living aiding the schoolgirls in their class projects--distilling bootleg gin and betting on the nags.

Such vices, however, are all in good fun. True, the girls' high inks include arson, and their cigarette-puffing tutors spend most of their time cocktailing in the staff lounge, but no one gets hurt despite the constant brouhaha that passes as education in these raucous classrooms. No, this film needs no animation, for life at St. Trinian's is fantastic enough.

The British hit their stride in the mid-1950s, when St. Trinian's was made, a decade that produced a plethora of comedic masterpieces, some celebrated (The Lavender Hill Mob with Alec Guinness), others less well-known but eminently worth watching (The Naked Truth with Peter Sellers and Terry-Thomas). Directors such as St. Trinian's Frank Launder concentrated on fast-moving, far-fetched stories with eccentric characters who for all their foibles and flaws come to a good end. That's what comedy is--an escape that suggests life can be kind to those with good hearts. With luck, the genre's current trend toward social realism will fade quickly and young directors will rediscover the recipes that worked so well 50 years ago.