Rockets Galore

(Hey, we watch the ABC here in Bris-Vegas, too, ye know.)

This is a fairly pleasant film, a light comedy that's easy on the eyes and ears. Not a terribly deep or unusual plot; yet another variation on We'll Band Together and Preserve Our Little Rustic Paradise Against the Modernist Interlopers and of course, Let's Get The Kids Involved. Some quite nice scenery at times, and the singing isn't of a grating quality. (Okay, some it's actually pretty good.) Not a great movie, but it's agreeable enough. Technically, it's pretty good for something shot in the late 1950s.

There are some funny characters in it (I particularly liked the policeman for some reason) and it does have that folksy/Scottish flavour to it -- I guess I like hearing the accents.

It's completely silly, and very "British", but I rather enjoyed this daft caper about the inhabitants of the tiny island of "Todday" who resist Government plans to militarise their homeland. It is clearly intended as a sequel to "Whisky Galore" with a few of the same characters rallying to the cause. Like many of Compton Mackenzie's stories, it is quirkily put together offering us loads of characters with idio(t)synchracies that raise a smile rather than a guffaw. Donald Sinden is completely lost here, though. His typically theatrical style of acting drags this down from an otherwise, gently entertaining base. The rest of the cast - Gordon Jackson, Noel Purcell and Duncan Macrae help to pepper the slightly dull script with some charismatic nostalgia for the first film, and demonstrate the feistiness and independence of these Scottish islanders who want no law but their own... It is fun, maybe not great, but still enjoyable.

The post-World War II British government wants to build an out-of-the-way rocket base on a tiny Scottish island over the objections of the inhabitants, some of whom will be evicted.

Remember when an overreaching government trampling over people's liberties was the boogie-man, before it became "corporations" (with no line drawn between big businesses and small groups of private citizens who band together corporately as in "Americans United"?) By the 1980s a similar plot was hatched, more cleverly, in "Local Hero" where the Businessman was not only the Big, Bad Wolf, he was (wait for it) an American! And the height of a corporation trying to raid a country is "The Coca-Cola Kid" with Eric Roberts and Gretta Scacchi, though all they wanted to displace was a local beverage of choice whose company was run by a crotchety old man (Bill Kerr).

This tale is Compton MacKenzie's own follow-up to TIGHT LITTLE ISLAND (a.k.a., "Whisky Galore") set on the same island with some of the same cast. But just because the same mind lies behind a sequel doesn't mean it's as good.

It has good moments, such as when a couple of residents mistake a boiling tea kettle for a rocket about to crash on them. And when a German scientist who went to Britain after the war and says things like "We British--!" But don't expect a lot of fast-paced car chase hilarity. It's not that sort of flick.

Mostly, it's a light-handed meditation on how far the government could and should dictate people's lives and how far is too far in protecting its citizens (the mention of an Orwellian "Ministry of Protection" is reminiscent of the French Revolution's Department of Pubic Safety--which was charged with lopping off heads).

In real life, the government, any government would win. In this flick--but that would be a spoiler.

Some very good performances, plus a few names like Donald Sinden and Gordon Jackson--not big stars, perhaps but known in America.

The inhabitants of Todday are content to live their lives in peace and quiet, until, that is, the government decides their little corner of the world would be the perfect place for a rocket launch site. Squadron leader Hugh Manders (Donald Sinden) is sent to the island for a look-see and discovers a pastoral land peopled with quirky characters not at all willing to give up their homes or way of life for the sake of "progress".

Rockets Galore is a leisurely paced film that eschews broad slapstick for subtle humour, much of it found in the wry dialogue. There is a pronounced anti war sentiment in the film ,not to mention a more than passing nod to conservation (it figures prominently in the picture's "mcguffin"). The film makes much of the scenic locales, which were shot on the Island of Barra in the Hebrides. The surprisingly good looking Eastmancolour adds to the effect. There's something to be said for a film that is both charming and entertaining. For that reason I have no problem recommending Rockets Galore.

Based on one of the stories by the famous Compton Mackenzie, this is a feeble film about the residents of a small island in the Hebredies and their attempts to prevent the RAF building a rocket base on their island.

I fell asleep (which is unusual).

The main benefit it that it is in colour. Enjoy the scenery and ignore the plot.