Ronald Searle's original dark, weird and hilarious St Trinian's comics
Before St Trinians was a (ho-hum with some bright moments) big-screen movie, it was a series of Charles Addams-esque cartoons by Ronald Searle (who also
St Trinian's: The Entire Appalling Business collects Searle's strips in a handsome hardcover package that is an absolute delight. Some of this material was apparently drawn in Changi, on paper stolen from the Japanese guards, using a smuggled fountain pen, and it all shines with the sweaty dark light of a (literally) tortured comic genius.
I haven't seen the 1950s films based on these strips, but I think I'll track them down now.
Link
the latest
latest episodes
The original movies are well worth finding, great low budget Ealing comedy.
Amazon UK should have a boxed set for not a lot - I think it cost me Β£19 three or four years ago. They are wonderful ensemble pieces between Alistair Sim, Margaret Rutherford and Joyce Grenfell among others, and the girls capture the spirit of Searle's illustration perfectly. Also go and find his male equivalent of the St Trinians girls, Nigel Molesworth, here: http://www.stcustards.free-online.co.uk/
Not to start more trouble with another suggestion for a change to BoingBoing, but would y'all consider putting titles of works in italics, so that it is easier to determine non-linked artwork titles. Doesn't have to be italics, but something. I take a fair amount of my art recommendations from BoingBoing (as Hunter Thompson would say, you all have "the right kind of eyes."), and having titles become easier to scan would make my shopping efforts that much easier.
Again, yay for BoingBoing. Double-plus good.
'Amazon UK should have a boxed set for not a lot - I think it cost me Β£19 three or four years ago.' (#2)
Down to Β£9.98 at the moment (just under $20) - best bargain ever, I'd say. Haven't seen the remake, but I'm not confident it'll be an improvement.
Ronald Searles interview for BBC Radio 4s "Desert Island Discs" is worth tracking down if anyone recorded it. Incredible the hardships he went through in order to produce his art. An inspiration to us contemporary doodlers that have it so easy...
I just saw the 2007 St.Trinians film.
It does lack the charm of the earlier films, and definately lacks the genius of Alistair Sim.
Still and all, I wouldn't call it ho-hum. More "well, nice try".
Omigawd, I didn't think anyone besides me had ever heard of Molesworth, at least not in the States. "How to be Topp" was one of my major favorite books back in my elementary school days.
So, who was Willans?
Point of order sir: the redoubtable Mr Searle was merely the illustrator of the grate Molesworth books, the author was the late, great Geoffrey Willans...
... as any fule kno.
Thanks, @8.
Now for a poll: Which do you like better:
1) Molesworth
2) Tom Brown ('s School Days)
3) Mr. Chips
:-)
Allegedly based on the Edinburgh school St Trinnean's. The building is now part of Edinburgh Uni's Pollock Halls.
Joyce Grenfell - "but you can call me sausage"
PB
"Daddy, you can't expect me to stay here. It's like Hogwarts for Pikeys!"
I thought Gerald Scarfe was Ronald Searle for a long time-- very similar drawing styles sometimes, and almost identical signatures-- until I started wondering why Searle was putting a little horizontal stroke through the "L" in his last name. Anyone else have this problem?
Great post but I must pick you up on one thing - Changi was not a "notorious death/POW camp". My father was incarcerated there after the fall of Singapore and went to the real death camp Sandakan in Borneo afterwards. He was shipped with the other officers to Kuching POW camp and survived after 3 1/2 dreadful years. The enlisted men at Sandakan weren't so lucky - only six out of the 2,400 Australians survived the war.
As digger history puts it - ""Changi became known as the most notorious camp in Asia, and in the minds of many people in England, Australia, and America, the Changi prisoner-of-war camp would invoke visions of atrocities, starvation, bad living conditions and emaciated men. It was the place where prisoners-of-war were reduced to a physical state more looking like living skeletons. As a prisoner-of-war, not only in the Changi Camp but in various camps in Singapore and Siam [Thailand], I cannot understand how Changi had earned such a reputation. My memories of Changi have never been unpleasant.
Prisoners-of-war in Changi did suffer deprivation and loss of self-esteem, but conditions were not appalling. Although food was rationed, it was provided every day. The camp was also provided with amenities, such as electric lights and piped water, which contributed to our cleanliness and good healthy conditions."
Maidens of St. Trinian's, gird your armour on
Grab the nearest weapon, never mind which one
The battle's to the strongest, might is always right
Trample on the weakest, glory in their plight
St. Trinian's! St. Trinians! our battle cry
St. Trinian's! St. Trinians! will never die
Bravely seek your fortune, go boldly on your way
Never once forgetting there's one born every day
Let our motto be foremost: "Get your blow in first"
She who draws the sword last always comes off worst!
Spooky - just this morning, for no reason I can identify, a scene from "The Great St Trinians Train Robbery" popped into my head. (Fourth one in the series, the one that dissapointingly only has five comic geniuses - Howerd, Bryan, Cole, Scott, and of course Mullard. No disrespect intended here for Varney and Baker, of course.)
Let me see if I can describe it... the forgettable plot has Frankie Howerd as #2 in a criminal gang. The mysterious chief only communicates via TV transmission of his voice and a still cartoon of a giant eye. Howerd and his men reports that their attempts to recover the takings from the last robbery have been thwarted by a girls school. "A girl's school!" shouts the voice incredulously. "What school?" "St Trinians" reports Howerd, ashamed.
And in a moment that has formed part of my mental baggage for many years, the eye (so far inanimate) bulges out in horror, and the voice goes silent.
"Is it broken?" ask the criminals, fiddling with the ariel and giving the TV idiosyncratic slaps.
Aw poot, I'm going to have to go buy it on DVD now.
#10, RDI:
It's also been suggested that the drawings (rather than the concept for the school itself) were based on girls from the Cambridge High School for Girls (now Long Road Sixth Form College) and/or the Perse School for Girls; both near Searle's place of work. The Wikipedia article on the Perse suggests that Searle stated this himself- I don't know if this is true, but it's 'common knowledge' in Cambridge.
My mother went to the Cambridge High School for Girls, my other half went to the Perse.
Ronald Searle illustrated and was featured in the Naked Island by Russell Braddon, the book recounts the fate of allied servicemen under Japanese occupation, a downloadable copy (wthout Searle's illustrations) can be found here:
http://manybooks.net/titles/braddonrother07naked_island.html
Braddon affirms that the schoolgirls and teaching staff of St Trinians are based on the inmates and guards at Changi.
The 50's films aren't great, but anything with Alistair Sim in is going to be worth watching... and George Cole is excellent as well.
And those school uniforms and stockings... oh my...