When the Tories are beaten by Labour, public servants rejoice at the potential for public schools to be scrapped (in particular - St Trinians). However the new Minister for Education gives them a massive grant instead - although his Government don't know that he is helping his mistress to set back up the criminal exploits of the school. Trouble starts though, when the school is resituated in a building where train robbers have hidden their loot.
In full colour and without the original girls of the series, this film looks to have potential simply on the basis of the talented cast involved. The plot is silly, but when did that ever matter with this stuff? The plot gets a little laboured at the start in the effort to reopen the school and place it in the middle of a train robbers' plan. This doesn't matter too much as it does eventually break away into a more free-flowing chase at the end.
However, despite their being plenty for the film to do, it is surprising just how little actually happens, how little impact the film makes and how little any one character has to do. This is most evident in the waste of good comedy actors. The loss of two or three main girls in the cast has reduced the girls to just an unidentifiable mass of unruly girls. This is a problem to start with, but should have been covered by the talented cast. Sadly none really have much to do and much to work with. Frankie Howerd has a few good lines but nowhere near his ability, Cole does his usual stuff but has almost nothing to do. Terry Scott shows his face for about 3 lines, while others like Huntley, Bryan, Varney and so on are really not well used.
Overall this film starts slow and poorly however, like a train, slowly builds up a reasonable head of steam for an energetic conclusion. That said, it isn't really very funny and you can't help but watch and spend more time looking at the missed potential.
