Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

"The Belles of St. Trinian's" is a British comedy similar to other films about schools run amok. It has a different twist however. Here the disorder and havoc are fomented by an unorthodox "faculty" as much as by a generally unruly student body. Indeed, the film leads one to wonder how many of the faculty have their faculties.The humor in this setup soon wears thin, and the screaming hordes after a while become grating. What saves the film, or makes it in the first place are the performances of three of the cast. Alastair Sim is very funny in his double role, especially as St. Trinian's head mistress. He/she is Millicent Fritton, sister of Clarence, also played by Sim.Two excellent performances are given by George Cole as Flash Harry and Joyce Grenfell as a police sergeant, Ruby Gates. She goes undercover to check on illegal activities suspected of going on through the school. The film is worth seeing for these three performances that generate most of the laughs.Here's a funny exchange between Millicent and Flash Harry. Millicent, "She says there is an illicit still on the premises." Harry, "It ain't a still. It's a homemade gadget for makin' bath tub gin." Millicent, "There is a man her called Flash Harry …" Harry, "Yeah. But she's no right to call me that in official documents." Millicent, "… who acts as a contact man." Harry, "Oh, that's a lie. I'm a go-between."

I watched the Belles of St Trinians for the first time in 25 years on a digital channel yesterday and for all it is dated now( well it was made 58 years ago), the film is still hilarious. Alistair Sim is brilliant as the corrupt, betting obsessed headmistress and a very young George Cole is excellent as the spiv Flash Harry. Also considering British schools were generally very strict places in the fifties, people growing up in this era must have wanted to be in a school where rules didn't exist and where the girls betted on horses and made illegal booze and goaded the teachers. A comedy gem which has plenty of hilarious moments( the hockey match, the old girls visit and the parents day) and which is made better by such a talented cast. Other St Trinians films are still watchable, although Wildcats was a not very good attempt to update the franchise for the eighties, but Belles is by far the best.

It is too bad that the two sequels to this little gem were ever attempted. They tarnished what is one of the funniest movies to come out of England during the hey-day of British film comedies, a circumstance that has also blunted the appeal of The Belles of St Trinian's because of the very high level of excellence of the competition. Movies like The Man in the White Suit, The Ladykillers, Passport to Pimlico, The Lavender Hill Mob, Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Importance of Being Earnest, Whisky Galore, The Happiest Days of Your LIfe and Father Brown, among others.This sort of humor is out of vogue due to the low level of vulgarity passing as humor in the entertainment industry at present. You will probably have to (and want to) watch these movies again and again to fully grasp their dry subtlety. The Belles of St Trinian's is a great place to start if you have not seen any of the movies mentioned. It is more slapstick and camp than cleverly dry, but there is that element too. Alastair Sim is hilarious as Miss Fritton, the headmistress of a horrifying girls school called St Trinian's. You quickly forget he is a man in drag and see him as a highly plausible, if over the top, Victorian lady who has had to turn her family home into a school in order to stay in the house.Her staff of teachers is equally funny. There is Joyce Grenfel as the horsey games mistress (who is also an undercover policewoman for the local constabulary investigating a crime wave), Beryl Reid as the county spinster golfer, Hermione Baddeley's drunken French teacher who spends class time sipping claret and having the girls recite the locations of the best vineyards in France and what varietal is grown on them. Joan Sims isMiss June Dawn, the sex education and hygiene instructor who also does fan dances upon request, and Rose Waters, played by Betty Ann Davies resembling Morticia Addams. She teaches scriptures and needle work. The staff is rounded off by the ever-raucous Irene Handl.The school is really a front for money laundering, bootlegging and racketeering, all managed by Miss Fritton's shady brother, also played by Alastair Sim. George Cole is the oily front man who is the go-between for St Trinian's and the local horse-betting circuit.The schoolgirls are all marvels of degradation and craftiness. This movie, like all British comedy after the war, contain not a shred of profanity, sexual graphics or violence. It's just very funny and is recommended highly to all lovers of intelligent and farcical humor.

The first of five St Trinian's films (although the last is usually discounted) was based around artist Ronald Searle's schoolgirl characters, and features the wonderful Alastair Sim in drag as Millicent Fritton, headmistress, as well as her own brother. Much of the humour is dated, yet curiously touching and outrageous in today's PC world - the girls drink, gamble, smoke and are later sold off to rich Arabs, yet always remain in charge, defeating bureaucrats, police, judges and other establishment figures as they maraud across England. Perhaps because the films have been so regularly seen on TV, St Trinians still inspires fancy dress parties and club nights. The films have recurring characters that include PC Ruby Gates (Joyce Grenfell) and Flash Harry (George Cole). The precursor to the entire series is a charming film called 'The Happiest Days Of Your Life' (1950).