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1%% This is how the quote formatting is suppose to look: One indent, then dialog, then two indents, then the source. Don't mess with it.
2[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sttrins1.jpg]]
3->''"We are the best,\
4So screw the rest.\
5We do as we damn well please.\
6Until the end,\
7St. Trinian's,\
8Defenders of Anarchy!"''
9-->-- '''Music/GirlsAloud''', ''Film/StTrinians2007''
10
11''St. Trinian's'' is a film series based on a series of cartoons by Ronald Searle (also known for ''Literature/{{Molesworth}}'' and ''Dick Deadeye, or Duty Done''). The setting is a [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors disreputable girls' school]], where the only rule is that there are no rules. The girls themselves are teen and pre-teen horrors who are not above using their feminine wiles to get away with murder. The teachers? They teach the girls how to get away with crime in foreign countries, and mixing drinks. The headmistress, Miss Fritton, has no interest in maintaining any form of order. And there is a local spiv, Flash Harry, who makes money from whatever schemes the girls cook up (usually). The series skilfully avoided any accusations of bad taste by limiting the girls to only two distinct types, the Lower 4th (who were the exclusive focus of Searle's cartoons) who were a group of feral little monsters who were barely human and the Upper 6th(added to Searle's original anarchic concept to give the films some sex appeal) who were (literally) uniformly hotties who were 20 if they were a day.
12----
13!!The original film series consists of:
14* ''The Belles of St. Trinian's'' (1954): The decrepit school is desperately in need of some money, so Miss Fritton (Creator/AlastairSim) allows the girls to place bets on a horserace. Things quickly get out of hand when the classes place bets on rival horses.
15* ''Blue Murder at St. Trinian's'' (1957): Flash Harry (George Cole) sets up a marriage agency, resulting in a prince wanting to meet the girls. Problems arise when the jewel-thief father of one of the girls decides to hide out at the school.
16* ''The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's'' (1960): The girls, having been placed in care of a dubious shrink after they burn down the school, are kidnapped and forced to defend themselves against the sons of an Arabian Emir, who want them as their wives.
17* ''The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery'' (1966): The school find a new home in a mansion where robbers have hidden money.
18
19In 1980, a revival was made, ''The Wildcats of St. Trinian's'', which follows the girls as they go on strike by kidnapping a young oil heiress. Joe Melia took over as Flash Harry. The film was a critical and commercial failure.
20
21In 2007, a new film was released, this time simply called ''St. Trinian's'' (''St. Trinian's School for (Bad) Girls'' in DVD release), and starring an ensemble of well-known English talent. When the school is threatened with foreclosure by the bank and the ultra-conservative Minister of Education, the girls, faced with threats from all sides, decide to pull off the biggest heist ever concocted by a bunch of teenagers. This one features Creator/RussellBrand as Flash Harry, Creator/RupertEverett as Miss Fritton, and Creator/ColinFirth as the Minister of Education, and thus avoids the CelebrityParadox by making jokes about ''Film/AnotherCountry'', ''Series/PrideAndPrejudice1995'' and ''Film/GirlWithAPearlEarring''. It's also notable for Firth and Everett performing "Love Is in the Air" over the end credits. Two years later followed a poorly-received (though not bad) sequel, ''Film/StTrinians2TheLegendOfFrittonsGold'' (featuring Creator/DavidTennant as the villain).
22
23----
24!!Tropes that span the entire franchise:
25* AmazonBrigade: The field hockey team. In the older movies, it would be the fourth formers. Can be applied to pretty much the entire group when they get going.
26** One clear example is in the first film, when the Old Girls (former students) get in a scuffle against the sixth formers and an actual street gang... And not only the Old Girls win, the gangsters ''fall immediately'', with the sixth formers being left to hold the line.
27* BadassCreed: ''"At other schools, they send young girls unprepared into a cold merciless world. But here at St. Trinian's, it is the merciless world which must be prepared."''
28** The theme song for the 2007 and 2009 films (quoted at the top of this page) is heavily implied to be, at least in part, a school song. Students can be heard chanting part of it before the hockey game in the first movie ("Feel the fear; we're maniacs.") and quietly singing the chorus before going into battle in the sequel.
29** There is also a line from the school song from the older films: ''Let our motto be broadcast: "Get your blow in first!" She who draws the sword last always comes off worst!''
30* BerserkButton: Don't mess with any of the girls. If you do, the rest of the school will [[AwakeningTheSleepingGiant pay you their full attention.]]
31* BlackAndGrayMorality: In an oddly comic way. The girls are criminal {{Karma Houdini}}s who should be in juvenile detention at the very least. In spite of this they are usually not as bad as their enemies, and they are loyal to their friends and their school. Whatever they get up to is however usually very funny as well.
32* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: As illustrated by Ronald Searle's wonderful comics.
33* BullyingTheDragon: At times people who ''should'' know better pick fights with St. Trinian's. Traumatization ensues.
34** {{Subverted}} with the Ministry of Education: yes, they continue picking fights with St. Trinian's, but it's literally their job to try and close it down, and they aren't stupid enough to use heavy handed methods that would elicit a violent response.
35*** The new minister Geoffrey Thwaites in the 2007 movie ''does'' use relatively heavy-handed methods... But only because they worked when he reformed the ''prison system'', and had the sense of bringing with him journalists to expose how bad the place is and have the support to reform it.
36* CatholicSchoolgirlsRule: St. Trinian's isn't Catholic but the trope still applies to the some of the senior girls ("St. Trinian's Girl" is the British name for this trope, and the 2007 movie provides the trope image - helps the vast majority of the cast [[invoked]][[DawsonCasting were in their 20s]]).).
37* CorruptTheCutie: The school has an unsettling ability to turn normal new students from other schools into proper St. Trinian's girls:
38** When she arrives in the original movie, Princess Fatima is just a nice high class girl. Halfway in the movie she's helping the other Fourth Formers betting on horse racing by virtue of knowing the horses better than them.
39** Angela Hall from the 1980 movie is the most notable, as she had been ''kidnapped'' from her actual school, and by the time she's rescued a few days later she has already taken in the attitude and demands to be returned to St. Trinian's.
40** In the 2007 reboot, Annabelle, formerly of the very posh [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheltenham_Ladies%27_College Cheltenham Ladies' College]], gradually comes to identify with the various young offenders attending the school, culminating in a makeover scene where she comes out looking sexy. It helps that during the hockey game with her previous school the Head Girl personally mauled her old bully.
41*** Something similar happens with Miss Dickinson, the idealistic new English teacher. When she discovers the extent of cheating at the quiz show, her immediate conclusion is that... Chelsea and the other posh totties are smarter than they think.
42* CustomUniformOfSexy: In most English boarding schools, younger students are expected to abide by the dress code, whereas older students have a bit more liberty. In Real Life, this "liberty" usually amounts to older students ditching their ugly berets or hemming their skirts a tiny bit higher than regulation, but an old in-joke is that by the time a student reaches top form, they're barely wearing a uniform at all, and that the older the girl, the more figure-flattering her uniform becomes. Since St. Trinian's is already a wild exaggeration of schoolgirl stereotypes, the Trinian sixth-formers take this trope up to eleven, with uniforms verging on {{Stripperiffic}}.
43* TheDreaded: The people living around the school are ''terrified'' of the students. Best shown in ''The Belles of St. Trinian's'', when the local reaction to the start of the new term is to ''barricade everything'', with the local constable locking himself in a cell and calling his superintendent to announce "They're back", prompting said superintendent to [[INeedAFreakingDrink go for the bottle]].
44* GoAmongMadPeople: A staple of the movies is showing how normal people react to being thrown into the school. Usually, they wind up either becoming paranoid or joining in the craziness. In the 2007 film an official at the Ministry of Education is shown to still suffer twitches and tics because of his brief exposure to the school, while in the original ''Belles of St. Trinian's,'' two police inspectors who went missing while investigating the school are found to have gone native and acquired jobs there, and are now as corrupt as the rest of the staff.
45* HonestJohnsDealership: Flash Harry
46* InspiredBy: St. Trinnean's School in Edinburgh, established by Miss C. Fraser Lee in 1922. St. Trinnean's was believed to operate on an extremely relaxed theory of educational freedom.[[note]]In reality, the school differed from other middle-class girls' boarding schools only in that the students were allowed to determine their own homework schedules, which at the time was seen as revolutionary and somewhat suspect. Also the real St. Trinnean's school sport was lacrosse, not field hockey.[[/note]] After meeting his friend's daughters who couldn't wait to go back to St. Trinnean's, Ronald Searle tried to imagine a boarding school so exciting that girls would be eager to return to it, and could only guess that it must be one where the pupils were allowed to anything they pleased, up to and including criminal mayhem. In the process, he created a British institution.
47* KarmaHoudini: The girls are guilty of everything from forgery to kidnapping, but never seem to get into any real trouble.
48* LittleMissBadass: The lower year girls.
49* LovableRogue: Flash Harry.
50* OneGenderSchool: St. Trinian's is an all girls school, and the majority of the staff are female.
51** The Bursar and the art teacher are male in the 2007 reboot.
52* StockingFiller: The senior girls have a penchant for stockings and garter belts.
53* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Comes up from time to time:
54** St. Trinian's may be an independent school, thus having less government supervision than a state-funded one, but the girls' antics are bad enough that the Ministry of Education is constantly trying to shut them down, coming ''really'' close to succeed in both ''The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's'' and ''The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery''.
55** Being an independent school, St. Trinian's doesn't get state funds and instead depends on enrollment and uniform fees and donations from alumni... And with the students' antics including ''arson'' [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking on uninsured buildings]] and other forms of damage they are often in financial troubles, risking to shut down from bankruptcy in the original film and the reboot and being out of a location at the start of ''The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery'' before the headmistress scams one out of the Minister for Education.
56* UncannyFamilyResemblance: In both the original film and the reboot. In ''The Belles of St. Trinian's'', Millicent and Clarence Fritton were both played by Creator/AlastairSim. In the reboot film, Camilla and Carnaby Fritton were both played by Rupert Everett.
57* UnflinchingWalk: The unexpected explosion of the shack that formally initiates the surprise visit to St Trinian, while it causes a gaggle of journalist to crouch and jump in fear, doesn't seem to faze Thwaites whatsoever.
58* UnnecessaryRoughness: Field hockey has never been so violent.
59* VillainProtagonist: The girls (it is ''St. Trinian's'' after all) are usually portrayed as organised criminals at best. On the other hand whoever their current enemy is is usually worse: bookmakers and the 6th form in the first film, kidnappers in the third, and a bunch of train robbers in the fourth. On the other hand the 6th Form in the ''The Belles'' and the entire school in ''Blue Murder at St. Trinian's'' are explicitly only acting to further their own plans. Flash usually falls into this niche as well.
60* VillainSong: If you do view the students as {{Villain Protagonist}}s, the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Yt9FOkxuk St. Trinian's Chant]] would be this. It fits pretty well in any case, with the girls revelling in the mayhem they cause. The school song from the original series also fits:
61--> Maidens of St Trinians, gird your armour on\
62Grab the nearest weapon, never mind which one\
63The battle's to the strongest, [[MightMakesRight might is always right]]\
64Trample on the weakest, glory in their plight!\
65\
66St. Trinian's, St. Trinian's, our battle cry!\
67St. Trinian's, St. Trinian's, will never die!\
68\
69Stride towards your fortune, boldly on your way\
70Never once forgetting there's one born every day\
71Let our motto be broadcast, [[DoUntoOthersBeforeTheyDoUntoUs "Get your blow in first"]] --\
72She who draws her sword last always comes off worst!
73
74!!The original series of ''St. Trinian's'' films (1954 - 1966) include the following tropes:
75* ArmiesAreUseless: The British Army shows up twice, and twice is humiliated:
76** In ''Blue Murder at St. Trinian's'' the Army is sent in to keep the girls contained after Miss Fritton is arrested and the rest of the staff leaves. They suffer many wounded, soldiers disappear either kidnapped or deserted, and the Fourth Formers even stole a machine gun.
77** In ''The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's'' an Army unit is sent to rescue the kidnapped Sixth Formers... And is quickly captured by [[PityTheKidnapper people battered due repeated failed attempts at subduing their victims]], needing to be rescued by the Fourth Formers. In their defence, [[JustifiedTrope it was a mobile bath unit, not an actual combat unit]].
78* {{Blackface}}: In the ''Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery'' Creator/FrankieHowerd's character gets a face full of soot, which he then uses to impersonate a Pakistani worker (with a dreadful accent) to evade capture.
79* TheCaper:
80** The break-in at the Ministry in ''Blue Murder at St.Trinian's'', where the girls break into the ministry, break through a ceiling, crack a safe and carry out their plan to [[spoiler: substitute some test answers, to make sure they win a prize of a European tour so they can get to Italy and the VI form can meet their Italian suitors]]. They get away with it undetected even though [[spoiler: they left a huge hole in the ceiling which, though papered over, is discovered in the morning]].
81** The train robbers in ''The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery'' pull off the perfect heist, hide the millions and look set to get away with it, until [[spoiler: it turns out they hid the loot in a house that's since been acquired as St. Trinian's new base of operations]]. They then plan another caper, hoping to get the money back.
82* CrossCastRole: Creator/AlastairSim as the headmistress.
83* EarlyInstalmentWeirdness: In ''The Belles of St. Trinian's'', the girls are not a united group, but are instead acting at cross purposes. The 6th Form's actions also explicitly endanger the survival of the school, while later films have the 4th and 6th Forms form a united group and protecting the school is usually their main priority.
84* EnfantTerrible: A general rule of St. Trinian's is that the smaller the girl, the more vicious she tends to be.
85* FamilyFriendlyFirearms: Averted in ''Blue Murder at St. Trinian's'': the girls have explicitly managed to steal a machine gun from the army.
86* HandcarPursuit: One takes place at the climax of ''The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery''.
87* OhCrap: In ''Train Robbery'', the mastermind behind the crime syndicate only appears to his subordinates as the unchanging image of an eye on a TV screen. Unchanging, that is, until they tell him that the school that's taken over the house where they hid the loot is St. Trinian's.
88* OnlySaneMan:
89** The undercover policewoman Ruby, compared to the other teachers.
90** Oddly enough, Flash himself brief falls into this role during ''The Great St. Trinian's Train Robbery'', upon learning the girls plan to take the train robbery money for themselves, he exclaims they'll never get away with something like that. Subverted in that he goes along with the plan when one of the girls points out how much they ''have'' gotten away with before.
91* PityTheKidnapper: In ''The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's'' the Sixth Formers are kidnapped with a ruse by an emir who [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe wants them to marry his sons]]. Upon realizing the situation, the Sixth Formers barricade themselves in a wing of the emir's palace and beat up any servant who tries to actually enforce the emir's orders, no matter how many of them come at a time.
92* QuintessentialBritishGentleman: Captain Romney Carlton-Ricketts in ''Blue Murder at St Trinian's'', played by Creator/TerryThomas.
93* RunningGag: In ''The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's, the silly pastoral dance to calm down... And the number of dancers increasing every time it shows up.
94* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: At times the girls' antics run into this:
95** The first film starts with Arabella Fritton, the headmistress' niece, having been ''expelled'' from St. Trinian's for burning down a building. As tolerant as headmistress Fritton is, she has to draw the limit to burning down school buildings, especially ''uninsured'' ones, and the only reason Arabella is readmitted is that the school is desperate for money and her back fees will help with it.
96** Between the burned down school building and many students being overdue with the fees, the school starts the first film in ''massive'' debt and risking foreclosure, and the teachers haven't been paid since Easter.
97** When the Sixth Formers lock the Fourth Formers in their dorms and barricade themselves in the corridor, the teachers try and rescue the Fourth Formers... And are repelled, as they're outnumbered and their opponents are behind a barricade.
98*** The second attempt, however, is successful: while the Sixth Formers have been reinforced by hooligans, the teachers are now backed by the Old Girls (the past students), that both Sixth Formers and hooligans are ''terrified'' of, mining their ability to resist. Their use of shields as cover only helps the storming.
99** A school with students such as St. Trinian's has a high teacher turnover rate: in the first movie the school lacks many teachers and is said to be constantly looking for new ones, at the start of ''Blue Murder at St. Trinian's'' the teachers have left after the students locked away Mrs. Fritton, and at the start of ''The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's'' there's no staff at all.
100** In the first movie police sergeant Ruby Gates infiltrates the school in disguise, and is found out only because Flash Harry looked in a letter she had sent to her superintendent. In ''Blue Murder'' she does it again... And Flash Harry immediately informs the Sixth and Fourth Formers of her real identity.
101** When St. Trinian's wins a UNESCO contest that will allow them to visit various European capitals (or rather cheat their way into it), the Ministry of Education is appalled, and writes to the new headmistress, Dame Maud Hackshaw, to have them retire - not knowing she's already been kidnapped by the students and replaced with a thief in drag. And when Dame Hackshaw escapes and quits the job they waste no time to send people to bring back St. Trinian's, as they need a headmistress for the tour (why the students were forcing the thief with them).
102** Given their reputation, St. Trinian's has serious trouble finding someone who will carry their students on the European tour.
103** By ''Blue Murder at St. Trinian's'', sergeant Ruby Gates and superintendent Kemp-Bird have been engaged for years, with their professional relation and St. Trinian's coming between them and keeping them from tying the knot... And by now their relationship is suffering, with Gates almost leaving Kemp-Bird when someone else starts courting her.
104*** Their issues continue in ''The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's'', with Gates catching Kemp-Bird in an ambiguous attitude with a beatiful secretary. Later Kemp-Bird is quite happy when St. Trinian's isn't shut down for burning down their school building and thus has to postpone their wedding, and at the end [[spoiler:[[RunawayBride he flat-out abandons her at the altar]] when told that St. Trinian's new school building is on fire]].
105** At the start of ''The Pure Hell of St. Trinian's'' the students burn down the main school building, and at the trial they have an appalling attitude. They're quickly convicted with the Ministry of Education being ready to shut down the school once they're sentenced, and only get away with no real punishment due a combination of a Sixth Former ''seducing the judge'' and someone else proposing a rehabilitation program. Even then, they'll be under police supervision and have a year to prove themselves reformed or they'll be jailed.
106** When the Sixth Formers are kidnapped by an emir, the British Army sends in all available troops in the area to rescue them. As said troops are a mobile bath unit, they're captured themselves.
107* WalkingInRhythm: In the original films, Flash Harry had a "theme" which played while he sneaked in.

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