Spotlight on St Trinians 17

The Team of Our Dreams

I recently treated myself to a month’s subscription to the British Newspaper Archive in order to do a bit of research. While I was in there, of course I looked up the St Trinians films to find out what the contemporary press were saying about them.  Much of what I found was cinema listings. Remember when you would look in your local newspaper to find out what was on at the flicks, and what time the show started?  Ah, those were the days, when you didn’t have to take out a bank loan to buy a local newspaper and you would get to see more than the main advertised feature with the supporting shows before it started.

Anyway, I found this little snippet in a Hartlepool newspaper from 1957.

It shows us that the teaming of Joyce Grenfell with Terry-Thomas was a deliberate publicity tactic, inspiring tongue-in-cheek press releases about scorching lovers playing sizzling love scenes. This is all quite pleasing to see, at least the film wasn’t being entirely sold using gymslip hotties, as became increasingly more frequent as the series progressed.

This must have piqued the interest of the public, as Joyce was again paired up with a love interest in the following film. In ‘Pure Hell’ she is wooed by a scheming Cecil Parker – same story, different actor really. Newspaper reviews of ‘Pure Hell’ suggest that Cecil was viewed as slumming it rather with this one, and that even he failed to lift it from mediocrity. Shame! Some things are better in retrospect, including these films. 

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