The villagers on the quaint Scottish island of Todday are a simple, friendly people. Living a peaceful existence in relative isolation, the islanders keep their morales up via a healthy consumption of that life-giving liquid known as whisky. However, in 1943, at the peak of World War II, whisky supplies suddenly dried up a disaster of unspeakable magnitude and so the grizzled men of Todday waste away their days in debilitating bouts of extreme depression. Just imagine, then, these men's reactions when a wayward freighter, the S.S. Cabinet Minister, shipwrecks off the coast of the island, its cargo consisting of 50,000 cases of whisky. What do these parched men do? Do they immediately rush out in boats to claim the alcohol for themselves? The answer is no; the day is the Sabbath, and so they can do nothing. 'Whisky Galore!' remains one of Ealing Studio's most fondly-remembered films, and was the debut directorial effort of the great Alexander Mackendrick, who would go on to direct such classics as 'The Man in the White Suit (1951)' and 'The Ladykillers (1955).'
The film was based on Compton MacKenzie's 1947 novel of the same name, which was itself inspired by a real-life incident in 1941, when the SS Politician ran aground off the Hebridean island of Eriskay, and was locally raided for its cargo of 24,000 cases of whisky {as well as, allegedly, nearly 290,000 ten shilling notes}. The tone is typical for the Ealing comedies of the 1940s and early 1950s, celebrating the ingenuity of the "common man" when pitted against authority. In the film's funniest and most imaginative sequence, the villagers have a very short amount of time to hide a very large amount of whisky, having been forewarned that a rigorous police inspection was imminent. In an inspired bid of desperation, the drunken men stow bottles of alcohol in every nook and cranny that nobody would think to look, hiding them in buckets of water, in their houses' guttering, under a sleeping baby and even inside a pie. In one amusing sequence, an obviously-intoxicated man scolds his mother for trying to pour the precious liquid down the kitchen sink, and so downs the remainder of the two bottles just in time for the investigators' arrival.
Though there are definitely moments when comedic genius simply sparkles from the screen, there were a couple of things about 'Whisky Galore' that kept me from absolutely loving it. First of all, a lot of the film's events take place at night, and I often found it extremely difficult to make out what was actually happening. Since I was watching the film at night in complete darkness, thus ruling out any troublesome glare, and the DVD featured an otherwise crisp print, I can only assume that the nighttime sequences have always been rather difficult to discern. The acting in 'Whisky Galore' is adequate, though the film is lacking the strong central performance that Alec Guinness could usually be relied upon to deliver; if only he'd been in this one! Basil Radford did, however, give an enjoyable performance as Captain Paul Waggett, the commander of the local Home Guard, who considers it his sworn duty to reclaim as many bottles of stolen whisky as he possibly can, understandably making him an unpopular figure on the island. Unsurprisingly, amid the community of Scottish residents, this bumbling spoilsport is, in fact, an Englishman.
The film was based on Compton MacKenzie's 1947 novel of the same name, which was itself inspired by a real-life incident in 1941, when the SS Politician ran aground off the Hebridean island of Eriskay, and was locally raided for its cargo of 24,000 cases of whisky {as well as, allegedly, nearly 290,000 ten shilling notes}. The tone is typical for the Ealing comedies of the 1940s and early 1950s, celebrating the ingenuity of the "common man" when pitted against authority. In the film's funniest and most imaginative sequence, the villagers have a very short amount of time to hide a very large amount of whisky, having been forewarned that a rigorous police inspection was imminent. In an inspired bid of desperation, the drunken men stow bottles of alcohol in every nook and cranny that nobody would think to look, hiding them in buckets of water, in their houses' guttering, under a sleeping baby and even inside a pie. In one amusing sequence, an obviously-intoxicated man scolds his mother for trying to pour the precious liquid down the kitchen sink, and so downs the remainder of the two bottles just in time for the investigators' arrival.
Though there are definitely moments when comedic genius simply sparkles from the screen, there were a couple of things about 'Whisky Galore' that kept me from absolutely loving it. First of all, a lot of the film's events take place at night, and I often found it extremely difficult to make out what was actually happening. Since I was watching the film at night in complete darkness, thus ruling out any troublesome glare, and the DVD featured an otherwise crisp print, I can only assume that the nighttime sequences have always been rather difficult to discern. The acting in 'Whisky Galore' is adequate, though the film is lacking the strong central performance that Alec Guinness could usually be relied upon to deliver; if only he'd been in this one! Basil Radford did, however, give an enjoyable performance as Captain Paul Waggett, the commander of the local Home Guard, who considers it his sworn duty to reclaim as many bottles of stolen whisky as he possibly can, understandably making him an unpopular figure on the island. Unsurprisingly, amid the community of Scottish residents, this bumbling spoilsport is, in fact, an Englishman.