Freut euch des Lebens!

A little town on a Scottish Isle suffers the most horrifying predicament, of which the outbreak of WWII in hindsight seemed to be an omen: they're out of whiskey! Everyone goes into an almost catatonic state until fortune takes a turn for the better: a ship is wrecked on a reef. The cargo: 50,000 cases of whiskey. But there's one do-gooder, the local militia leader, who just can't allow the cargo to be put to use. That, he says would lead to anarchy. Many well defined characters, good plot.

When I hear the phrase-"Celtic Twilight"-not so much in use now--I've come to think of this film. The meaning of "Celtic Twilight" might be summarized as the sense that history has passed by Ireland and other Celtic peoples in Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, etc., and what we see now is a sort of a cultural endgame, leading to its long and inevitable death throes.

Whiskey Galore, about a wartime whiskey-starved island in the Outer Hebrides, displays these kinds of characters: a full-grown man afraid of telling his mother he wants to marry a local girl, and his intolerant domineering crone of a mother; a gossipy telephone operator; an out-of-it ferry captain, unaware of the rising sexual tension his daughters are undergoing; and dozens of mischievous, winking, alcohol-craving townspeople who are dying to loot an abandoned ship full of their beloved whiskey but afraid to do it on the Sabbath!

One more character, played by Basil Radford, is the stuffy, self-important head of the local militia, out of step with the other residents, sworn to uphold the law. Apparently the director, Alexander Makendrick, objected to the character's silly and ineffectual pomposity.

This is truly one of the great, charming Ealing comedies, very remindful to me of the Irish-American citizens of my mother's home town, Brasher Falls, New York. A gem in its sly humor--although the video copies I've seen are of a murky quality.

Along with classical music Compton Mackenzie certainly knew his stuff when he wrote Whisky Galore, basing it on true events that happened in 1941. I always preferred the film. The quality of the video I made from UK BBC2 on 28th Dec 1988 was excellent, but there are budget editions out there so if interested best be careful. This is one of Ealing's handful of timeless first class classics, one that is always shown on TV and has passed into British movie folklore. Its depiction of the Sabbath-keeping Scottish islanders is only just passing into history as the inhabitants of the Outer Hebrides are only gradually establishing Sunday communications with the mainland.

Insular isolated island runs out of whisky but a cargo ship with 50,000 cases of the muck runs aground nearby. Happy times return, against all the efforts of Basil Radford as the local snooty (English) Home Guard Captain. Bruce Seton was actually a rather weather-beaten 40 to Joan Greenwood's 28 but they surely made a splendid non whisky drinking couple especially at the dance. Favourite bits: The church clock striking for the arrival of Monday morning and the consequent sudden activity; The group of men singing lustily and making hay with their first drink for ages; Hiding the muck from the Excise men, and so much more to watch and savour over and over again.

Ealing Studios went to Barra in summer 1948 and filmed this in 3 months for £80,000 - over-budget, too! When I think of the enormous pleasure that it's given me and so many others over the decades I would think that it was money very well spent, unlike any that might be spent on a pointless remake.

When I saw this film was made by Ealing Studios, I jumped at the chance to see it. That's because following WWII, this small studio made a long string of cute little gems--all with exquisite writing, acting and direction--and on shoestring budgets. Their Alec Guinness films and PASSPORT TO PIMLICO are some of the very best films of the era. So I wasn't surprised when I found I also enjoyed this slight little film about a town that ran out of whisky (the Scottish spelling) and their attempts to smuggle in a new supply of drink. Once again, the very simple story was deftly handled and it was quite entertaining. There were only two drawbacks--neither one might affect you personally. The first was the language. While I watch tons of British television and movies, I, like most Americans have a much harder time understanding Scottish accents than English accents. I really would have loved subtitles or closed captioning, but the videotape I saw had neither. Secondly, the quality of the print was really lousy. Both these problems can be blamed on Critic's Choice Videos. I've seen other films from them and must say they produce among the WORST quality videotapes--try to find ANY other brand.

Delightful post-war British comedy illustrating for the umpteenth time the fighting spirit of the "ordinary Joe" (or in this case Jock) when set against the pomposity of the would-be ruling classes. Capt Waggett (Basil Radford) is the real star here as the middle class representative of stiff upper lippery. Surely Jimmy Perry and David Croft must have drawn on him when they were dreaming up the Capt Mainwaring character for the long-running BBC TV sit-com "Dad's Army". Even one of Waggett's lines ("I was waiting to see when you'd spot that", a comment usually made when Mainwaring had just uttered some piece of logistical nonsense) made an appearance. Unmissable example of British comedy rooted in the style that made Ealing so succesful.