| The Wildcats of St. Trinian's | |
| Director: | Frank Launder |
| Producer: | E.M. Smedley-Aston |
| Starring: | Sheila Hancock Michael Hordern Joe Melia Thorley Walters Rodney Bewes Maureen Lipman Julia McKenzie Rosalind Knight Ambrosine Phillpotts Rose Hill Deborah Norton |
| Music: | James Kenelm Clarke |
| Cinematography: | Ernest Steward |
| Editing: | Antony Gibbs |
| Studio: | Wildcat Film Productions |
| Distributor: | Enterprise |
| Runtime: | 91 min. |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
The Wildcats of St Trinian's is the fifth British comedy film set in the fictional St Trinian's School. Directed by Frank Launder, it was released in 1980.[1] [2]
The film pokes fun at the British trade union movement which had been responsible for the recent wave of strikes that culminated in the Winter of Discontent.
The film was not a critical or commercial success.[3] It has yet to be released on DVD except in the US.
The girls of St. Trinian's hatch yet another fiendish plot—a trade union for British schoolgirls. Their friend and mentor, Flash Harry, suggests a plan which involves kidnapping girls from other rather more respectable colleges and substituting their own "agents". Thus begins a hilarious, often bloody, battle of wits as the girls meet resistance not only from Olga Vandermeer, their Headmistress, but from the Minister of Education, a private detective, and an oil sheikh. Despite all his desperate efforts to foil the conspiracy, the Minister has to face a growing realisation that the girls' demands will have to be met—for him this will mean a very great and very personal sacrifice.
It had been fourteen years since the previous St Trinians film. "I didn't want to do another St Trinians unless it could top the previous one," said Launder during filming. "I think this one does."[4] Sidney Gilliat was a production consultant.
Derek Malcolm of The Guardian called it "one of the worst films I've ever seen... Please don't do anything like it again. Ever."[5]
Launder wanted to follow the film with an adaptation of the books by Norman Thelwell about a pony school. He almost made it in Norway in the late 1970s and in 1979 planned on making it in Britain the following year.[4] However no movie resulted.