CINEMA
The Belles of St. Trinian's. (Gaumont.)-- For Better, For Worse. (Warners.)
daring insouciance, and it is good that at the moment of their demise a fitting memorial has been built in the shape of The Belles of St. Trinian's. I approached this film with some trepidation, for it seemed on the face of it to be courting disaster, and it is a relief to announce That, although courted, this has not been won, and that Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliatt have written and produced a very funny film indeed. The high level on which it starts inevitably sinks and droops on occasions, but somebody, Alastair Sim or Joyce Grenfell or George Cole, always catches it before it falls and gives it an upward push. Mr. Sim as the headmistress of this madhouse is quite superb, his comedy timed with exquisite precision, his appearance both repulsive and compelling. The thuds of those falling back in their stalls in paroxysms of mirth at his performance are liable to drown the fiendish noise made by his pupils. These monsters, copied as near as is humanly passible from Mr. Searle's drawings, are involved in some way with the nobbling of a racehorse, that is when they are not distilling gin, preparing lethal booby traps, smoking, gambling, or hitting Miss Grenfell on the head with a mallet. There is not nearly enough of Miss Grenfell, who, disguised as a policewoman disguised as a games mistress, is admirably hearty and perplexed by turns, but in all too small doses. As the only sane person in view, she makes an excellent foil but on the whole she is not too well served by the script. As for the other mistresses, played by Hermione Baddeley, Betty Ann Davies, Irene Handl, Renee Houston, Beryl Reid, Mary Merrall, Joan Sims, and Babina, they cannot be believed even when they are seen, so gloriously outrageous are they, Miss Baddeley in particular, soddenly teaching her pupils the wine-growing districts of France, surpassing all bounds. In sum this film, full of ravishing absurdities, splendid lunacies, is a fitting tribute to the creative artist's genius, and in a storm of flour, soot and feathers we can say goodbye to St. Trinian's on a gay note.
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For Better, For Worse was a nice, friendly play and nothing much has happened to it on its way to the screen. True its director, J. Lee-Thompson, fearing perhaps that the confines of the stage would be evident, has introduced a number of extraneous sequences, but in the main it stays the same, the simple story of a newly-married couple's trials in their one-roomed flat, charmingly told in words of one syllable. Dirk Bogarde and Susan Stephen are the boy and girl, Cecil Parker and Eileen Herlie are the girl's parents, Athene Seyler, Charles Victor, Thora Hird, Dennis Price and James Hayter attendants at the revels, so it can be seen that no expense has been spared to give this comedy a fine professional polish, and in its
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