Film Listings – Bognor Regis Observer – Friday, 05 August 1955

PAVILION, SELSEY. STARRING John Mills and Eric Portman, "THE COLDITZ STORY " is a true story which happened during World War II. Colditz Castle, where most of the action takes place, was used by the Germans as a prisoner-of-war camp during World War I and no one escaped from it. It was natural that the German High Command should use it again in World War II; and to Colditz Castle they sent all those Allied officers—French, Dutch. Polish and British—who had escaped from other camps in Germany. and had been recaptured . It is these men who are the heroes of "The Colditz Story". Their great sense of humour, and immense courage, kept them going, and enabled them to attempt a series of daring escapes from their impregnable fortress. - Playing a dual role as school mistress and her bookmaker brother, Alastair Sim scores vet another success in the comedy "THE BELLES OF ST. TRINIANS.“ As Miss Fritton, head mistress of a girls' school. Sim is uproarious. The school's unorthodox doctrine of free expression has brought it a collection of uninhibited pupils, and although the school is bordering on bankruptcy scholarly activities are conspicuous by their absence. The school's finances are in such a perilous state that Miss Fritton indulges in betting. Awful things happen when the sixth form steal the horse on which Miss Fritton has put all the school's money. George Cole portrays a bookmaker's tout who gets most of his business from the girls, and Joyce Grenfell is a police officer sent to investigate the school's evil doings.