A happy people with few and simple pleasures," says the opening voice-over, as nine children appear, one after the other, through a crofthouse door. Commentators have dismissed Mackendrick’s comedy about the islanders of Todday as stereotypical, patronising and tame, but it is outrageously funny and highly subversive. In attempting to salvage 50,000 cases of whisky from a grounded ship, a criminal Celtic brotherhood outwit the English Home Guard captain. Mackendrick, a Presbyterian with a strong work ethic, fell out with producer Monja Danischewsky over the latter’s romantic vision of a remote community fighting foreign interference, but Danischewsky got his way and his vision was encapsulated in the American title Tight Little Island. Novelist Compton Mackenzie was inspired by the grounding of the SS Politician off Eriskay, but it was only because Ealing was full that cast and crew made the long trip to shoot on location on Barra, adding greatly to the film’s character.
BoB
Whisky Galore - drinking song
Aye how I laughed at this film, even though it was dated by the time I saw it
Lorries can run on Whisky you know back then!
Full Tilt Boogie
Grand stuff this film!
I know divers who claim that they can still 'lay their hands on a few bottles...' from the cache ;)
BoB
There would be very few bottles left down there now.
Last ones taken out went for a small fortune.
The bottles had cork stoppers and sea water has got into them.
They are not worth drinking
