Spotlight on St Trinians 16

Thorley Walters and the Dual Personality

Thorley Walters appears in both ‘Blue Murder’ and ‘Pure Hell’, but unusually, he plays different roles. Clearly there is meant to be continuity between the films – Flash, Ruby and Sammy all appearing as the same characters in the first three installments. Although there is the classic clanger of Miss Fritton’s change of first name (she is Millicent in ‘Belles’ and Amelia in ‘Blue Murder’).  But for some reason, Thorley was allowed to appear as the army major in ‘Blue Murder’ and then Butters the education department man in ‘Pure Hell.’

The only reason that I can think of for this is that Thorley went down well with Launder and Gilliat, and they thought him well suited to the role of a man in authority who is brought to his knees by delinquent girls. Having carried out some research on Thorley Walters (read my potted biography here) it seems that he was a very easy actor to work with. He was never out of work and this is testament to his talent and his employability. No tantrums, no ego, no scandal (apart from the delightful rumour that he was Cecily Courtneidge’s toyboy) Thorley was simply a grafter. His aptitude for comedy roles shows that he was not afraid to make himself look daft – I bet he was a dream to work with compared with wrangling Alastair Sim and a gang of adolescent girls.

Both of Thorley’s roles are made to look ridiculous by femininity. In ‘Blue Murder’ his army Major enters the school to give the girls a jolly good talking to. He is sent out again dressed in a gym slip. Meanwhile in ‘Pure Hell’ he is turned into a gibbering wreck by the Shakespeare striptease and turns to a few effeminate dance moves to calm his ragged nerves. The clear message is that girls who do not behave are emasculating and if a man lets them win then he degrades himself by becoming feminine too. So you’d best keep your girls under control. The same could be said of Lionel Jeffries’ role in ‘Blue Murder’ – he has to pose as a headmistress because the St Trinians mob have him over a barrel – if he doesn’t do as they say then he will be turned over to the police as a jewel thief. By being check-mated by the girls, he too becomes feminine and finds it degrading.

Earlier posts in this blog series laud Launder and Gilliat for being feminist film makers, but here’s where they let themselves down. Being like a woman isn’t that demeaning, is it chaps? After all we’d been though in the war?  In the 1950s it was time to put us in our place again…have we recovered yet?

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Spotlight on St Trinians 15

The History of Superintendent Sammy Kemp Bird

Joyce Grenfell’s Policewoman Ruby Gates is one of the undisputed stars of the first three St Trinians films, but she would be nothing without her Sammy.  We learn in ‘Blue Murder’ that the policing pair have been engaged for 14 years, but despite Ruby’s desperate entreaties her Sammy refuses to make an honest woman of the poor old girl. This backstory really adds meat to Joyce’s role. Everything she does, she does for Sammy but her envisaged future happiness is continually thwarted. To some extent we can sympathise with him, obviously he has dug himself into a hole that he doesn’t know how to get out of. And you can see how Ruby might be hard work. But still, he’s a big old coward and a rotter for leading her on for so long.  Let’s find out some more about the actor behind the old stinker.

Lloyd Lamble was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1914, which explains the very slight accent behind the otherwise standard 1950s diction. Listen carefully, you can hear it. Lloyd came from a musical family – his father was secretary of the Musicians’ Union of Australia. Lloyd went straight into entertainment as soon as he was old enough, and he worked as a radio announcer and as an actor. He also opened his own acting school. His first film acting credit according to IMDB is in an Australian film ‘The Farrer Story’ from 1949.

Lloyd left Australia when the work dried up in the early 1950s – and by this point he had also been married three times! Perhaps he didn’t need to dig too deep to find a man trapped in a relationship that he didn’t want anymore…His first British film was called ‘Island of Desire’ and this was released in 1952. It also featured other soon-to-be household name Peter Butterworth. By the time that ‘Belles’ was released just two years later, he had appeared in 16 previous films. He obviously had something that British film-makers wanted. This was probably his voice. It had always been considered solid and reliable and it had been used by the Australian Government during WW2 to deliver propaganda messages. I recently watched a film called ‘No Trees in the Street’ and up popped Lloyd – as a policeman of course – being calm and strong in a crisis. A typical British attribute that we liked to see back in the 50s.

 Lloyd appeared at the Edinburgh fringe in the 1970s and acted in the West End. His career continued on into the 1980s – according to IMDB his final role was in soap opera ‘Howard’s Way’ in 1985. But he lived on to the staggering age of 94, dying in 2008. There was certainly more to him than a mean old Barsetshire Superintendent!

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