The St. Winifred's Trilogy

The three parts of the ‘St. Winifred’s Trilogy’, a pdf version of 'Janus 15' and the digital edition of ‘Encore Janus’ number 1 published on the 30^th Anniversary of the release of the trilogy are available from Janus WorldWide at (http://www.janusworldwide.com/store/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=638).

The ‘St. Winifred’s Trilogy’ was released by Janus in 1982 and it is the basis of a series of a photostory (above) in Janus 15; the last issue of Janus published that year.  The first edition of ‘Encore Janus’ digital magazine was published on the 30^th anniversary of the release of the trilogy and it contains a story titled “St Winifred’s – The ‘Citizen Kane’ of Spanking Movies”.  That might be going a little far but there is no doubt that the ‘St. Winifred’s Trilogy’ is one of the classics of the spanking movie genre.  The Trilogy consists of ‘The Athlete’s Lesson (14 minutes long), ‘The Sixth Former’s Lesson’ (13 minutes) and ‘The Head Girl’s Lesson’ (20 minutes).  All three share a common setting, story line and characters and they could easily be combined into one movie but they continue to be sold as three separate parts at ₤10 (about $13) each, double the price of other Janus movies.

 

The trilogy has a cast of 8 which is unusually large for a spanking movie.  The actress playing Gilly Norton (the Head Girl) had appeared in and on the cover of Janus 12.  She also appears in the Roue movie ‘Rebel at St. Angela’s’ (a screen capture from ‘Rebel at St. Angela’s’ is shown at the left).  The actors playing Deputy Head Girl Slocombe (Lucy Palmer) and Colonel Forbes (a school patron) had previously appeared together in a photostory in Janus 14 as Michele and the Principal.  Two of the other schoolgirls (Blisset and Green) were also played by Janus regulars Tina and Angela (actually Anne Proto who appeared in 'The Kane Assignment' respectively but the last two, who play Beddows and Lovett, made their first and only Janus appearance in St. Winifreds.  Encore Janus identifies the actor playing the Headmaster as Stanley Lowe, a British con-man, and a search of the internet would seem to confirm this; the pictures certainly look alike.

The movie was filmed at what was once a London landmark, the School Dinners Restaurant on Baker Street in London.  The restaurant is now closed and the site is the Barracuda Club and Casino.  Encore Janus states that “… extensive research has not been able to determine exactly when the filming took place in 1982.  We do know that it was a Sunday though as the cast and crew had the venue to themselves for the day”.

Each segment begins with one of the girls writing the name of the segment on a blackboard with a spelling mistake that she corrects after a slap on her bottom.

The Athlete’s Lesson

Five students from St. Winifred’s School for Girls are called before a disciplinary panel consisting if the Headmaster, Colonel Forbes and the Head Girl.  Each of the five has been accused of some form of misconduct and the panel will decide on their punishment which will be accrued out immediately.  The first two girls, Blisset and Beadows, are accused of being negligent in their school work and wearing inappropriate attire in the dormitories and school pool.  Norton, the Head Girl suggests the cane as an appropriate punishment but Colonel Norton recommends the strap.  The Headmaster decides on a combination of a hand spanking together with the cane and he instructs Norton to carry out the hand spanking after which the he will administer 12 strokes of the cane.  Norton administers a bare bottom hand spanking to Blisset and then gives the same to Beadows who is wearing a body suit.  Next, Beadows receives the first caning.  Blisset follows and again her caning is administered to her bare bottom.

 

The Sixth Former’s Lesson

Norton reports that she observed two students, Lovett and Green, leading a sit in during a class and that she has decided to administer the tawse to both.  She goes on to report that she also observed them reading Playboy (rather than Janus?) and, for thi,s the Headmaster will administer a caning.  Lovett will be first.  The punishment proceeds.  A few of the strokes are repeated in slow motion but I would have preferred that hadn’t been done.  Green is next and she receives the tawse from Norton followed immediately by a caning from the Headmaster.  Finally, Lovett returns for her caning which ends the segment.

The Head Girls Lesson

The third and final segment begins with Colonel Forbes reporting that he has seen Head Girl Norton and Deputy Head Girl Slocombe (played by Lucy Palmer from 'Room 2D') ‘cavorting in the bushes’ with some local boys.  The Colonel is outraged and the Headmaster is virtually speechless; their outrage is so overblown that it is almost comic.  The Headmaster demands that Norton explain and when she can’t he decides that both should receive the slipper from the Colonel and then receive a caning from him.  Slocombe is first and she receives a lengthy slippering (actually, it looks like a running shoe) .  Norton follows and the Headmaster decides that her punishment should be the tawse rather than the slipper.  As with Lovett’s punishment in the previous section, part of Norton’s strapping is repeated in slow motion, complete with distorted sound that I found to be annoying.   The canings come next, Slocombe first followed by Norton, with both receiving 18 strokes from the Headmaster.

This is a good movie but I think editing the three segments together into one movie would improve it.  My major complaint is with the camera work which seems to be a recurring comment in my reviews.  In this case I find the framing too tight; I wish they had pulled back a little to give a wider frame although this may have been difficult given the setting.  Overall, I think St. Winifred’s is definitely a movie worth seeing.  It has one of the largest casts that I can recall in any spanking movie but I wouldn’t go so far as to compare it to ‘Citizen Kane’.