The Yanks had the screwball, and the Brits the golden age of the Ealing studio. National cultural differences are apparent, but the chaos and upheaval are universal. In this debut feature by Alexander Mackendrick (1912-1993), the inhabitants of a Scottish coastal island live a relatively distant life far from the turmoil of the Second World War, until they come face to face with the most horrific of all consequences: the whisky that has kept the local life flowing is running out in the whole village! The solution is a shipwreck on the island’s shore, with no less than 50,000 bottles of the nectar of the gods in its hold, and the rest of the film becomes a power struggle between the scheming tipplers and the sober-minded Home Guard Captain Waggett (Basil Radford), who has swallowed the rule book whole.
Born in the USA to Scottish parents, Mackendrick is a rare bird among “British filmmakers”. But some of his less than ten directorial works are still canonised landmarks – the Ealing classics The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955), Sweet Smell of Success (1957) directed in America – and this hilariously funny cinematic debut also belongs in the same category. The first-class technical execution, with its twisted camera angles and striking editing, supports the dark tones of the black humour; the slanderous barbs are witty. And in the end, as an ultimate twist, even the laws of economics are mentioned – after all, Karl Marx also rests in the soil of the United Kingdom…
Lauri Timonen